


Man's long shadow driving on

by elanorelle



Series: Man's long shadow [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, M/M, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:11:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanorelle/pseuds/elanorelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester would hold these truths to be self-evident: that Lawrence is home, that he loves his brother more than anything (more than he should), and that ghosts do not exist.</p><p>… Well, at least he was right about the first two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man's long shadow driving on

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn_j2_bigbang 2009. This is technically a sequel to _for you as yet_ , but it shouldn't be necessary to read that in order to understand this. It will, however, provide additional context/backstory should you feel so inclined.
> 
> Title from Merlin by Edwin Muir.

The Christmas Sam was sick with 'flu, Dean stayed up with him on the nights he couldn't sleep so that they could plan the drive across America they were going to take when they were older.

They'd been on road trips before, as a family, but those had mostly involved visiting relatives or educational trips to state capitals, and they'd _all_ involved listening to Dad's seemingly never-ending supply of Johnny Cash cassettes, until such point as Sam would pick a fight about it. Then they'd drive the rest of the way in silence, or with Mom making placatory conversation that only Dean would bother to engage in.

When they were old enough, Dean said against the pillow, they'd do it properly; just the two of them, he promised, the way it was always best.

There were other plans—increasingly more impossible as they got sleepier and Sam's fever got higher, involving submarines and spaceships and at one point possibly a time machine—all of which passed out of mind easily enough with more careful thought, but the road trip idea stuck.

The summer after Dean graduated college and Sam finished high school, they finally took the chance, setting off in the early morning sun of a Saturday in July.

They were going to the Grand Canyon—not quite the cross-country trek they'd had in mind when they were kids, but they had Dad's Impala and an open road and each other, just like they'd planned, and that was enough.

They knew the taste of each other's mouths and the way their bodies fit together just right, and that was more than enough.

They left Lawrence behind with Sam's hands on the wheel and Sam's crappy music on the stereo, and it was everything.

++

Before they crossed the Kansas-Oklahoma border, Sam stopped them at a gas station for 'essential' supplies they'd neglected to bring along, by which he meant obscene numbers of Twizzlers and Hershey's S'more bars. Dean left him to it and went in search of bottled water, because it was fucking hot outside and Sam had been finishing every bottle Dean started, without so much as a by-your-leave. It was annoying.

While he was deciding whether flavoured water sounded interesting or just plain disgusting, Sam came up holding a plastic basket so full of sugar it made Dean's teeth ache just to look at it. For a guy who brushed his teeth a hundred times a day, Sam ate a lot of things that were unlikely to promote good dental health. He slung an arm around Dean's neck, casual as you please, and Dean suppressed the urge to shrug him off. The gesture was innocent enough, and even if it wasn't, nobody was likely to know who they were in the back-aisle of a gas-mart off the I-35. Still, it took him a couple of seconds to adjust; to get used to the weight of Sam's arm and the feel of Sam's fingers resting against his chest.

He'd gotten better since it started, didn't shy away from every semi-public show of affection for fear it might give away too much; the way Sam bumped their knees together under the table and stood too close to him in lines and the way sometimes he tugged on Dean's belt loops if he wanted his attention. None of it was new, exactly—Sam had always been more tactile with Dean than with anybody else—but it felt different, more intimate, now that things had changed. Now that Dean knew, in detail, exactly how it felt to have his brother's hands on his dick.

Dean remembered how, after the first time, he'd barely been able to look his parents in the eye; how when Sam had touched him in front of them—casually enough, just fingers brushing when Sam handed him a cup of coffee—Dean had jerked back like he'd been burnt, positive in that moment that they'd know everything, that it was impossible they _couldn't_ know, that they had to.

They didn't, of course. Never would, if Dean could help it, because there were some things that just didn't bear thinking about.

"Can we get some beer?" Sam said, suddenly.

Dean snorted and went for the twelve-pack of regular water. "Yeah, sure, because underage drinking in the car wouldn't be a felony at all."

Sam laughed. "Yeah, I guess," he said. Then, "How about _root_ beer?"

Dean grabbed a 16 oz bottle of the 'hint of lemon' stuff as well, because Sam hated lemon and so there was a chance Dean might get to drink this one all himself. "You make me sit in the car with that shit, I'll walk back to Lawrence, I swear," he said.

Sam laughed again, bright and infectious. He let his arm drop when they started moving towards the counter to pay, but put it back as soon as they were out the door walking towards the car. She was shining in the heat, sleek and beautiful from the wax Dad had given her right before they left, and Dean still couldn't decide if he was more jealous that Sam was the one who got to have her or just grateful that one of them did. He'd kind of had this image of Dad asking to be buried in the damn thing.

He got in the passenger seat and waited for Sam to start her up.

Before they'd even turned back onto the Interstate, Sam demanded that Dean give him a Twizzler, and when Dean opened up the bag full of Sam's 'essentials,' there was a glass bottle of root beer, sweating against the bright plastic wrapping of a bag of peanut M&Ms, neither of which Dean had noticed Sam picking up at the gas station.

He held the bottle up so Sam could see and said, "You want me to walk home, is that it?"

Sam grinned. "If that were true, would I have bought you peanut M&Ms?" he said, and Dean couldn’t really argue with that. He ripped the bag open, threw a handful of colours into his mouth, crunched down on sugar into the chocolate that was already melting a little underneath. Sam was smiling at him when he looked over. Dean smiled back, ate another handful.

The sun was big and bright in the blue sky as they passed into Oklahoma.

++

Dean had kind of expected that Sam would want to drive for the whole duration of the trip—considering he'd wanted to own this car since he was six—and so next morning, after they'd finished filling up on gas, Dean was surprised when Sam tossed him the keys and headed towards the passenger side of the car.

"Your turn to drive," Sam said, as he opened the door, like it was already a foregone conclusion.

Dean grinned at him and got in behind the wheel, because it pretty much already was.

When he turned the key in the ignition, the stereo came on, blasting out whatever lameass shit they'd been listening to earlier that had Sam practically jizzing in his pants. Fucking Cobain. At least, Dean thought it was him, but it could easily have been one of the other douchey grunge artists Sam listened to. Dean didn't spend much time trying to telling them apart.

"Driver picks the music, Dean," Sam said with a smile, like he knew just what Dean was thinking. He turned the music down so that it was only murmuring quietly to itself. "What's it gonna be?"

"Zeppelin," said Dean automatically, because _fuck_ yeah.

Sam pulled the box of tapes up from the foot well and started sifting through the collection while Dean put the car into drive. By the time he'd taken a right out of the gas station onto the road again, Sam was frowning.

"It's not here," he said, his long fingers making the plastic cases clatter against one another.

"What, not even _Physical Graffiti_?" Dean said, in disbelief.

Sam shook his head.

"Sabbath, then."

Sam rifled through the cassettes again, but after a few seconds he looked up and said, "I can't find them either."

"What? Seriously?"

Sam shrugged. "Nothing except _Heaven and Hell_."

Dean shook his head vehemently, "If it ain't Ozzy, it ain't Sabbath, Sammy, you know that. What's that shit even doing in there?"

Sam frowned. "I think it's one of Mom's," he said, which figured. Their Mom had pretty awesome taste in music, for a mother, but she and Dean had never seen eye-to-eye on the whole Dio vs. Ozzy issue. Sam sifted through the box a little more and let out a hollow laugh as his fingers closed around another cassette. "And I think we know where this one came from," he said, and held it up; it was one of Dad's Johnny Cash albums, slipped in as a joke, probably. Judging by the way Sam threw it over his shoulder onto the back seat, Dean wasn't entirely sure it had gone over too well.

"Any Metallica?" he said, getting the conversation back on track.

"No."

"Boston?" he asked, a little desperately. Sam friggin' _loved_ Boston.

But Sam looked up at him unhappily. "None of it's in here."

"Sammy, Sammy. That's just _sad_ , dude," Dean chuckled, turning left to head back towards the Interstate. "Have my attempts to further your musical education really been so ineffective?"

"No, seriously, Dean, I thought we had it all. You gave me that whole pile of tapes, remember? I was sure I'd put them in," Sam said, guiltily. "Man, I'm sorry."

He sounded genuinely upset, which was stupid, because it wasn't like the point of this trip was the _music_ , anyhow. "Whatever, dude, this is fine," Dean said, indicating the muffled mess of screechy guitars that was still going on in the background.

Sam looked sceptical.

"You hate Nirvana."

Dean thought for a moment and then said, "I like that one song," which was true, but only because there'd been an afternoon at the beginning of the summer they'd spent making out and listening to that song on repeat. Dean couldn't even remember what the damn thing was called (probably because Sam had told him about the same time Dean's brain had started turning to mush from all the kissing), but it had some pretty good associations now, whenever Sam played it again.

Sam smiled knowingly, like he could read Dean's mind, but he just said, "I stand corrected," and didn't call him on it. He leaned forward to turn the volume up again and said, "You sure you don't want to listen to something else?"

Dean smiled and shook his head, even though he did, because to his mind it was pretty much undeniable that a sweet car like this needed classic rock on the radio rather than some whiny grunge bullshit. Except the thing was, even though it made Dean's ears bleed, Sam's music made _Sam_ really happy (Which seemed strange, considering most of it was so damn miserable) and that wasn't something Dean ever got tired of seeing. Besides, he really did kind of like that one song, and maybe it would come round again.

Still, when Sam bought some new tapes in the next town they rolled through— _We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll_ and _The Best of Jefferson Airplane_ and _dude_ , Bowie—Dean didn't complain.

He did, however, make Sam listen to "Starman" the rest of the way across Texas.

++

Dean sucked his brother off for the first time in a cheap (but thankfully clean) motel just off the I-40, which had pay-per-view porn Sam wouldn't let him watch and a pool Dean was pretty sure they weren't going to spend any time in.

He'd never given a blowjob before and it was inexpert at best, he thought, but Sam seemed to like it just fine, even if he laughed at the way Dean choked and spat, afterwards, and then said, "You get used to that."

Not for the first time, Dean wondered about the specifics of Sam's sex life prior to them becoming ... whatever it was that they were now, but—also not for the first time—he clamped down on the urge to bring it up. He wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

Of course, then Sam decided to return the favour, and it was so good, so fucking _practiced_ , that Dean had to ask.

"Sammy," he gasped, and he tugged at Sam's hair until he pulled off and rested his head against Dean's thigh. "Seriously, man, who the hell have you been screwing around with?"

Sam only chuckled, low and dirty, and wrapped a hand around Dean's dick.

"Not telling," he said.

"Why not?" Dean knew he was whining, knew he sounded like an idiot, but Sam was moving his hand just enough to make Dean crazy but not enough to get him off, and really he was just glad he hadn't started begging yet.

"Not important," Sam murmured, and he sucked a mark onto the inside of Dean's thigh, another on his belly. He moved up slowly—so fucking slowly—until he could catch Dean's bottom lip between his teeth. He bit down gently and then licked at the same spot.

Dean was so turned on he couldn't think, could barely hear what Sam was saying in between short biting kisses, but then Sam pulled back enough to look Dean in the eye and say, "Just you and me, now."

Eyes dark and strange in a too-familiar face, and Dean kissed him then; tangled both hands in Sam's hair and crushed their mouths together because he didn't think he could hear any more without falling apart.

One of Sam's hands moved on Dean's cock again, slow like before, and the other slid down, over Dean's balls and the soft skin behind, then further back. Dean shuddered. A couple of his more adventurous girlfriends had done this, touched him there, but it had been tentative and strange, not something he'd wanted to pursue; not even with Lara, who'd had a strap-on and a very persuasive tongue she'd used to get Dean to do a lot of things, but never that. With Sam, though ... it was hard not to just ask for it right now, hard not to spread his legs and beg for Sam to open him up and fuck him.

He knew Sam wanted to, had come close to asking a couple of times, even, but Dean had always found a way to distract him, with his hands or his mouth or just a change in conversation, because this was one line Dean didn't feel ready to cross yet. It was probably futile to make distinctions by this point, but he couldn't help it: they'd fucked each other up, maybe, but they hadn't fucked, and somehow that mattered. It couldn't last, he knew it couldn't last, but at least for now he could still tell himself things hadn't gone that far.

So he kissed Sam instead, to keep the words he wanted to say from spilling out of his mouth, while Sam's hand moved on his cock until Dean was arching his hips up into Sam's grip, hitching his legs up around Sam's waist; desperately pleading for Sam to let him come.

When he finally did, Dean pressed his face into Sam's neck and breathed in the smell of sweat and sex, murmured something stupid and sappy he hoped Sam would let him deny later; wrapped himself up in his brother and tried to pretend it was okay.

++

They reached the Grand Canyon on Thursday, a little later than they'd planned. Not that Dean was exactly surprised, considering the number of unscheduled stops Sam had insisted on along the way – for snacks and impromptu sightseeing and randomly making out by the side of the road. Dean didn't think the last one was always such a great idea, especially when Sam had them stop at isolated rest spots where scores of redneck truckers could turn up at any moment, but it was kind of hard to argue with Sam's tongue down his throat, and so it had become something of a regular fixture along the way.

The North Rim was crowded, no surprise there, but they managed to find a spot along the railing and looked out across the Canyon, bathed in the orange glow of approaching sunset. They'd both been here before, Dean more than once, but he knew it never stuck in the mind afterwards quite the way it actually was, so immense and overwhelming and impossibly strange: it was just as impressive this time as it had been the first. He knew Sam felt the same, though he'd never admit it.

They stood in silence for a little while, shoulder to shoulder at the rail. There was a group of tourists from Japan snapping pictures next to them, talking animatedly. Dean didn't remember much of the Japanese he'd learnt from one of his college girlfriends, but he heard the word "sugoi!" so many times that he had to smile.

Sam shifted on his feet and when Dean looked over at him, he was frowning a little; crease between his eyes that Dean always wanted to smooth away.

"Don't you think it looks kinda fake?" Sam finally said, "Like one of those old Hollywood movie sets?"

It was the exact same thing Dad had said when they came here as kids, and the resemblance right then was so uncanny that Dean couldn't help but mention it to Sam.

He regretted the words as soon as they were out, and Sam immediately started staring moodily across the Canyon like it had done something to offend him personally. Dean sighed. Sam could deny it all he wanted, but it was John he took after, in looks and in temper, and it was that—not their differences—that caused the friction between them. This wasn't the time or the place, however, to try and convince Sam of that, so instead Dean leaned in a little closer and let the fingers of one hand rest lightly against the bare skin of Sam's forearm.

"Does it make you feel, you know, small?" he said. It sounded lame and totally cliché, but it was the truth, and even if Sam gave him shit for it then at least he wouldn't be sulking anymore.

Sam didn't say anything for a few seconds, but then Dean felt the way his brother's body relaxed next to him, and he knew that they were okay.

"Dude," Sam said, "That's not the Canyon, that's just 'cause you're standing next to me," and he tilted his chin up until it was resting on the top of Dean's head.

Dean smiled and let him do it, though he made sure he also pinched Sam's arm, because it was definitely written somewhere in the big brother handbook never to let a comment like that slide.

They stayed like that for a couple of minutes, until Sam moved so that his forehead was resting against Dean's temple, the tilted tip of his nose against Dean's cheek and his breath ghosting down over Dean's neck.

It was an unmistakable invitation, soft and hesitant the way Sam rarely was about anything but especially not this, and Dean didn't let himself think, just turned his head and pressed their lips together, licked into Sam's mouth until he could taste Sam's cinnamon gum and the stale coffee it didn't quite cover up.

In spite of everything else, they hadn't really done _this_ very often—kissed in public—and to Dean it still felt like an unforgivable risk, even here, where nobody knew them and they'd be gone long before anyone could figure them out.

But it was hard to remember why that mattered now, because Sam was smiling against his lips with delight, and Dean loved him so much he could hardly stand it, and maybe this was the most honest they'd ever get to be about who and what they were to each other.

He kissed Sam a little harder, and tried not to think about how much he was going to miss this when they went home.

++

They decided to drive back through Colorado (and avoid Utah, because the more distance they maintained between Sam and the Mormon community, the better) rather than the way they'd set out, for a change of scene and because Sam was adamant that they had to stop off in Boulder, for Dean's sake. Dean thought that it was more likely an excuse to take longer about getting home but he did miss the place, if truth be told, even if he'd only graduated a month ago, and besides, only a fool would give up a chance to drive through the Rockies.

First, though, and also at Sam's insistence, they took a detour to go and see the Four Corners, even though they already did that years ago with Mom and Dad, and they all stood in a different state and John thought it was so awesome that Dean and Mary had rolled eyes at each other while Sam sulked and asked when they could stop holding hands.

It was just the two of them this time, and so they straddled two states each (Dean standing in Colorado and New Mexico) and pushed their hands together, tried to make each other fall over. After a couple of minutes, the people next in line started making a fuss. Dean glanced over at them: it was clearly a church group, all wearing t-shirts that said, "Jesus loves you," which was the kind of phrase Sam would probably say really meant, "Jesus loves _me_ , miserable sinner." When it came to this particular group of people, Dean thought he had to agree. He was about to say something obnoxious in response, when Sam let go of his hands and Dean stumbled forward against his chest. When he looked up to frown at his brother, Sam just tilted Dean's chin up and kissed him, brief and open-mouthed. Dean hardly had a chance to think about it before Sam pulled away, looking far too pleased with himself, and offered a cheery salute to the people waiting; Dean could practically _feel_ the disapproval radiating from each and every one of their faces.

As they walked back to the car, Dean asked, "What was that for?"

Sam shrugged. "Figured it'd be fun to kiss you in four different states at the same time."

"Yeah? You didn't just want to piss off some Mormons?"

Sam's grin turned playful. "That too," he said, and kissed Dean again before getting in the car.

++

So, Dean's thing with coffee was pretty much all his mother's fault, actually. There'd been this moment—Dean was eight or nine—when she'd been up all night with Sam and his night terrors, and in the morning she'd come down, bleary-eyed, to the kitchen where Dean was having breakfast with Dad, who'd smiled and handed her a mug, saying, "You look like you need this." Mom had kissed him on the cheek and said, "You're a lifesaver," and drank what was in the cup like it was the best thing she'd ever had. Dean couldn't wait to try coffee after that.

Of course, when he'd finally done so, the taste was weird and bitter and kind of gross, but Mom had been right when she'd told him he'd get used to it, and now any morning without coffee wasn't one Dean wanted to wake up for.

The diner they were having breakfast in this morning had coffee that was hot and fresh and better than any Dean had had since they left home, and he finished his first cup before the food even came out. When the waiter came over to give him a refill, Dean held the cup up to his face and breathed in the scent of it. He probably looked like a tool, but for coffee this good, it was worth it.

"You two need to get a room?" Sam said, a forkful of pancakes halfway up to his mouth.

Dean sighed happily and took another slow, measured gulp. "It's possible," he said, when he was done.

Sam swallowed his mouthful and frowned; he actually looked like he was a little annoyed by the display, which Dean thought was kind of adorable, not that he was about to admit that. He smirked at Sam over the rim of his cup.

"Sorry, Sammy," he said, "There are just certain things coffee does for me that nothing else can."

Sam leaned in closer. "And what about the things only I can do for you?" He was giving Dean a look that was probably meant to be sexy and which probably would have been, at any other time, except right now they were in an IHOP on a Saturday morning, surrounded by kids getting maple syrup in their ears, and Sam was talking about coffee like some kind of jealous love rival. Dean didn't want to laugh, because he knew Sam would probably take it the wrong way, but he couldn't help it bubbling up anyway, because it was just funny, sometimes, the way Sam _tried_ so damn hard. The way he thought he had to try at all.

Sure enough, as soon as Dean started laughing, Sam slouched back in his chair with a scowl on his face.

Dean chuckled one last time and said, "Aw, don't worry, Sammy, I promise that if you and this cup of coffee were both stuck in a burning building, and I could only save one of you? It would totally be you, bro." It was a ridiculous thing to say, but then, Sam was pretty much being utterly ridiculous, so.

Sam shifted a little, like he wanted still to be offended but was finding it hard. "What about if the choice was between me and the world's entire supply of coffee?" he said, still sounding entirely too serious about the idea.

Dean pretended to think about it for a moment. "Definitely still you," he said, "But it wouldn't do much good, as you'd probably be the one I killed the next day when I went into frenzied caffeine-withdrawal."

Sam laughed, just a little, and went back to picking at his chocolate chip pancakes, which he'd drenched in three different kinds of syrup, with the obvious intention of making sure Dean would be too repulsed to steal a bite. It was working, by the way. Dean also knew that Sam's coffee would be spiked with sugar and too much cream, and that the juice in his glass was grapefruit rather than orange. It was like his whole breakfast was deliberately proofed against Dean being able to eat any of it, which seemed monstrously unfair considering that Sam never finished anything anyway. Whatever, somewhere along the road today there was a bacon cheeseburger with Dean's name on it, and Sam wasn't getting a single bite.

"So, I was thinking," said Sam, sipping at his grapefruit juice which, again, gross. "When we're done in Boulder, you wanna maybe head somewhere else?"

Dean looked up from what remained of his French toast. "Somewhere else?" he said, carefully. This sounded suspiciously like the start of one of those minefield conversations Sam was always pulling on him; the kind Dean found it hard to navigate without something blowing up in his face.

"Yeah," said Sam, "I was thinking maybe we could go see Denver. You said you didn't go nearly enough while you were at college, I thought we could spend some time there."

"Sam—"

"Or, there's always California," Sam said, undeterred, a glint of something desperate in his eyes.

"California?"

"You haven't seen Palo Alto, yet," Sam went on, which was true, but Dean failed to see the relevance.

"Sam, we're gonna be taking you out there in like a month. I'll see it then," he said.

"But that'll be—" Sam halted and pushed the hair back from his face in frustration. "It's not the same," he said, eventually, and Dean thought maybe he understood.

He tried to think of what to say for a long, awkward moment. In the end, he settled on the truth. "We're not going to California, Sam."

Sam just stared at the table for another drawn-out stretch of silence, shredding a napkin between his fingers, before he finally looked up at Dean and said, "Why not?" in a voice that was equal parts confusion and hurt.

"Well, the fact that it's about a thousand miles in the opposite direction, for starters," Dean said. "Not to mention that tearing off to the West coast was definitely not part of the deal when we cleared this whole thing with Mom and Dad."

Sam didn't say anything. He'd run out of paper to mangle, and so his hands fidgeted restlessly against the tacky plastic tablecloth instead.

"Come on, Sam. We've been and done what we said we were gonna do; now we have to go home again. That's how it works. We can't just ... stay gone and pretend like that would be okay."

"Can't we?"

Dean was shocked, really, at the way Sam just said it. Because it was one thing to take as long as possible about getting home, the way Sam had been doing so far, but it was quite another to suggest not getting there at all. Until now, he hadn't honestly believed that that was what Sam actually wanted. He still didn't think it really was: Sam was eighteen and messed up, a little angry and a lot confused, and god knows Dean got that, of course he fucking did, but it didn't change a goddamn thing, and Sam had to know that.

Dean said as much.

"It wouldn't change anything, Sam. If we didn't go back. We'd still be the same people we've always been. Nothing would be any different."

"Maybe," said Sam, almost too quiet for Dean to hear. "Maybe it would."

"Maybe it would," Dean conceded. "But that doesn't mean it should be. We are who we are, Sam, and we've gotta go home sometime."

Sam nodded, slow and reluctant; unhappy in a way Dean couldn't stand, but which he couldn't fix, either. Not right now. Not the way Sam was thinking.

They finished breakfast in silence, and the last mouthfuls of Dean's coffee were lukewarm and gritty in his throat.

++

It was late afternoon when they got into Boulder, and the rush hour traffic had them sitting in the same spot for twenty minutes. Dean stared out of the window at the pavement and felt a bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck. The weather was heavy and humid, undoubtedly gearing up to rain, and Dean wished it would just start already. He shifted against the leather of the seat, sticky and uncomfortable. By the side of the road, there was a strip of grass that had grown sparse and patchy in the summer heat. It was brown and pathetic, full of coke cans bleached white in the sun and other trash thrown out by people probably sitting in traffic just like this. It looked like it could use the rain, too.

Sam was sitting with one hand on the wheel and the other hanging out the open window. They were listening to Garbage, ostensibly because Sam was "really into female vocalists right now," though Dean was pretty sure that just meant he thought Shirley Manson was hot. Apparently his little brother dug angry Scottish chicks. Who knew?

Said little brother, incidentally, hadn't really spoken beyond monosyllables since they left the diner that morning, not even when Dean had started ragging on Bush, saying they sounded just like Nirvana (which they fucking did, by the way), and that was usually a sure-fire way to get Sam ranting on for five minutes about stylistic differences and shit like that.

Dean knew why Sam was upset. At least, he thought he did. Sam was difficult to read at the best of times; Dean had spent his whole life so far trying to find a way to figure him out definitively and coming up with nothing. In this instance, though, Dean had a pretty clear idea of what was up.

Because he got it, he really did. This ... thing between them, the way they felt about each other; it was hard sometimes, knowing that it couldn't really be anything other than what it was. That they couldn't go to their parents and say, "so, gay incest, hope that's okay." Even the thought that they'd ever find out was enough to make Dean feel a little hysterical. Still, it couldn't work the way Sam was suggesting either—the two of them running off and never coming back, never seeing their family again—and even more than that it wasn't something Dean wanted to try. The idea of losing so much, of forcing their parents to as well: he couldn't live with that. For all of his brother's repeated insistence, Dean didn't think Sam could either.

They moved about an inch further along the road and then stopped again. Dean opened his mouth to say something about the douchebag up ahead with the custom rims and the bad 'eighties rap blasting on the stereo, but that wasn't what came out at all.

"Sam," he found himself saying, "You know it's not that I don't want— that I'm not—" he didn't know how to say it. He swallowed hard and tried again. "You know it's just that we _can't_ , right?"

Sam didn't say anything for a minute, and Dean worried that he'd left it too long, been too vague, for Sam to know what he was talking about, but then his brother sighed and said, "Yeah, I know."

Dean shifted on the seat so that his body was angled towards Sam. "'Cause you know it's—" he gestured ineffectually with one hand between the two of them. It felt impossible to say what he meant. "—it's us. And that's ... that's _it_. You know?" he finished lamely.

Sam broke into a smile for the first time since that morning. "Wow, Dean," he said, "So articulate. I can see that college education's really working for you."

"Shut up," said Dean, without much conviction. He looked out at the traffic, which definitely wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and then leaned in to kiss Sam's smile. He pulled back, after, and looked Sam in the eye. "You and me, yeah?" he said. It felt like a promise he shouldn't have been making.

Sam nodded and kissed him again. When they parted this time, Sam said, "Love you," against Dean's lips and it wasn't like they _never_ said it, they just didn't normally say it like _that_ , in the way that made Dean's cheeks burn; the way he knew they weren't supposed to.

"Such a girl, Sammy," he said in response, because he either had to lighten the moment or have a panic attack over it, and right now he just didn't have the energy for the second option. Maybe later.

"Fuck you," said Sam, though the sentiment would have been a lot more believable without the dimples to frame it.

Above them, the clouds opened up with a rumble, and Dean heard raindrops pattering on the roof of the car. He put one hand out of the window to feel the rain on his skin, and the other along the back of the seat to tangle his fingers in the unruly mess of Sam's hair, unable to decide which felt better.

++

It was raining hard by the time they stopped at the Roadview Motel, which certainly lived up to its uninspiring name, but which didn't advertise hourly rates (never a good sign) or look too much like a crack den, and which had the word 'vacancy' shining bright red above the parking lot.

The guy sitting behind the counter in the lobby looked like he was barely old enough to even have a job, but he smiled cheerfully when he said, "Hey guys, looking for a double?"

Dean would have been happy to just say yes and be done with it but before he could, Sam chimed in: "Single, actually."

The guy's smile faltered just slightly. Not enough to suggest they were going to have any trouble, but enough that now Sam was leaning into Dean's side more than he needed to, his left hand coming up to rest against the back of Dean's neck. Sam had been doing this ever since they left Kansas: finding people he thought had a problem with 'the gay thing' (thankfully never 'the gay incest thing,' though Sam's pigheadedness meant they'd come close), pushing them to see what kind of reaction he'd get. It had only really backfired a couple of times, and never badly, but that didn't make it any less irritating, not least because Sam genuinely seemed to get a perverted sort of pleasure out of it that Dean couldn't understand. His brother could be kind of a dick, sometimes.

The kid (Walter, according to the name he had sewn into his bowling shirt) was smiling again—albeit slightly more hesitantly—when he said, "Sorry, all the singles are full up."

"They are, huh?" said Sam, both his tone and the look on his face unashamedly incredulous. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Walter said, but his brow furrowed a little, like maybe he wasn't. "Well, I mean, there's one room, but I really shouldn't let you—"

"Great, we'll take it."

Walter hesitated a moment. There was a strange look on his face, but it wasn't disgust or disapproval as Sam no doubt thought it was. If anything, it looked like fear. Which maybe wasn't totally unreasonable, considering that Walter was about five two if he was an inch and Sam was a friggin' Sasquatch, but Dean didn't think that was it.

The kid licked his lips and tried again. "Are you sure you won't take a double? I'll only charge you the same as we would for a single, if that'll help."

"Really, we'll just go with the single," Sam said, the smile on his face thinning out in a way Dean knew meant his brother was getting pissed.

"I don't think you want it," Walter said, fingers pulling at the collar of his shirt.

"I just said that we did," Sam replied.

When Walter still just stood there, looking unsure and conflicted and really fucking young, Sam shook his head and spat out, "Man, what the hell is your problem?"

Before he could said anything more, Dean put a hand on Sam's shoulder and looked Walter in the eye. He asked, "Is there something wrong with the single you have left?" because Sam wasn't going to give up until he had it, and if it turned out the room was actually flooded or full of rats or home to a wandering tramp, then it would probably save everybody a lot of time. Not even Sam was going to stay in a rat-infested hobo's room just on principle … probably.

Walter shrugged. "It's not that, it's just—weird, you know? People ... see things when they stay in that room. Most people leave after, like, one night, or ask us to move them to a different room, but ... sometimes it's worse." He paused, looked around like he was checking for eavesdroppers, then leant forward over the counter and said, confidentially, "They say somebody got found dead there, once. All beat up, no idea why. They say—" his voice dropped to a whisper, "They say it's haunted."

The kid's eyes were wide and intense, but his expression and the tone of his voice sounded sincere. Dean was this close to asking him to elaborate, when Sam burst out laughing. It wasn't genuine, but rather the awful fake-sounding laugh Sam only used when he thought something was particularly worthy of ridicule.

Walter's face lost its open honesty and turned sulky instead. "Anyway," he said, shortly, "We try not to rent it out, is all. Not unless we really have to. I could get in big trouble for letting you have it. You know, if anything happens to you."

"Well, Walter," said Sam, "I promise we won't blame you if it does." He reached round to get the wallet out of Dean's back pocket, and that was just too fucking much. Dean slapped his hand away and got the wallet himself.

He smiled tightly at Walter and said, "We'll take the single, if you don't mind," because, more than anything else, he wanted out of this horrendously awkward situation.

Walter shrugged and took the cash Dean was holding out. "Whatever, man," he said, not looking either one of them in the eye, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"We won't," said Sam, insincere smile plastered onto his face.

When they got outside the lobby, Sam laughed again, no less meanly than before, and said, "Can you believe that guy?"

Dean just looked at him, his patience running out, and said, "You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that?" because _god_ , he _hated_ when Sam got like this. He walked off towards the room they'd been given, leaving Sam to get their stuff out of the car.

" _I'm_ the asshole?" Sam called out after him. Dean didn't answer.

The room was clean enough, though the decor was at least ten years out of date and there were scuff marks and scrapes on the walls and floors from where they'd moved the furniture around. The light flickered a couple of times when they first turned it on, but then it seemed to sort itself out, and the television worked okay (in the last place they'd been, they'd had to watch everything through a snowstorm). The A/C unit worked sporadically at best, which was kind of a bitch in this weather, and the whole room had a weird sickly smell that didn't fade, but all in all it was still better than that place in New Mexico they hadn't stayed in which had cockroaches and a hole in the floor.

Sam came in with their bags and said, "So, find anything _weird_ , yet?" but he had that slightly embarrassed tone in his voice that meant he'd realised what a dick he was being.

"Don't be a dick, Sam," Dean said anyway, still irritated, not turning to face his brother.

"What?" said Sam, plaintively, but when Dean didn't reply he sighed and said, "Look, I'm sorry, okay? About before. I know I was a jerk." His tone lightened. "But c'mon, you don't seriously think that this is what, a haunted motel room?" Dean could tell without looking that Sam was grinning at him. "Like some low budget version of _The Shining_?"

Dean relented a little. "Well, we are in Colorado," he said. He twisted his head round to look at Sam, who was standing close behind him now and quite definitely grinning. "And, given time," Dean said, "I'm sure you could drive me batshit crazy, so."

Sam grinned wider and hooked his fingers in the back of Dean's jeans so that Dean's back was flush against his chest. "All work and no play makes Dean a dull boy," he said into Dean's ear.

Dean swallowed. "Was that supposed to be a come on? Because, I gotta tell you, quotes from horror movies? Rarely sexy."

Sam just smiled and mumbled "red rum" into Dean's neck while his hands worked their way under Dean's shirt.

++

They ordered Chinese food for dinner because it had gotten too late to really go anywhere and the menu was within easy reach on the bedside table.

The place said twenty minutes, but it was more like forty-five, and when the delivery guy turned up he offered them a discount and a bunch of free egg rolls, which didn't change the fact that the food was lukewarm and greasy and tasted mostly of salt. Sam complained loudly about sodium intake and MSG and picked all the cashew nuts out of his chicken and rice before he refused to eat any more. Dean frowned and tried to force an egg roll into him, but Sam had freakishly long arms that were pretty hard to get around. Eventually, Dean gave up and finished his beef in oyster sauce (well, he thought it was beef, mostly because he didn't like to think too hard about what else it might have been), and then took the rest of the stuff outside to the trash can in the parking lot before Sam could start whining about how the smell was making him sick.

The rain had stopped for the time being, and when he'd put the boxes in the trash Dean just stood for a second and looked up at the sky. He loved the smell after it rained; wet earth and pavement and the freshness of the air itself, cleared a little of the heat of the day. He glanced around, and when his eyes came to rest on the motel lobby, Walter was staring right at him, a frown on his face and that same frightened look still in his eyes.

Dean looked away quickly and walked back to the room, where Sam was lounging on the bed in his boxers, watching something that not only had subtitles, but which also looked as if it had many overly grim and serious things to say about life. Dean wasn't sure how Sam had managed to find anything like that on the paltry selection of mediocre channels this place offered, but that was Sam for you. He looked up from whatever it was and said, "You okay?"

Dean shook off the unease that Walter's expression had instilled in him, and settled next to his brother on the bed with a smile. "I'm fine," he said. Sam smiled back and kissed him briefly on the mouth, then turned his attention back to the TV.

Whatever it was that Sam had found to watch in friggin' German wasn't exactly thrilling, but Sam was engrossed enough that Dean's attempts at distraction went mostly unnoticed, and eventually Dean gave up and let himself doze against Sam's shoulder. He didn't realise he'd actually fallen asleep until Sam moved and his head knocked against the wall behind them; when he looked at the clock next to the bed, he saw it was close to midnight.

Sam was looking at him with an amused grin on his face that Dean didn't much appreciate. He leaned in and kissed Dean on the nose, smile still on his face. "Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty," he said, and Dean scowled in the way he thought best communicated a resounding _fuck you_. When that didn't seem to work, he used the actual words.

Sam just laughed and then got up from the bed to go and brush his teeth, looking pointedly at Dean until he reluctantly did the same. He made a concerted effort to deliberately squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube, which merited a scowl from Sam, and then gargled long and loudly with the mouthwash, because Sam had this weird thing about gargling that made his mouth go all flat and huffy. He got a particularly good reaction this time, and Sam even said, "Dean," in his bitchiest tone before Dean finally relented and spat in the sink. He grinned wide at Sam and got an eye roll for his trouble.

The room was almost unbearably hot without the A/C working, and so they lay separately on opposite sides of the bed, though chances were they'd end up tangled together come morning. The weather outside had turned stormy again, and Dean fell asleep counting the number of breaths Sam drew between the crash of thunder and the flash of lightning.

++

When he woke up again the room was still dark, and utterly silent. He lay there in confusion for a second; the storm seemed to have subsided, Sam was still on his own side of the bed, and there was nothing else Dean could think of to account for what had woken him, unless it was the fact that the A/C appeared to have finally kicked in. The air felt cool on his bare arms where before it had been damp and hot – though he couldn't hear the whirr of the unit.

He glanced over the room, allowing his eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness. When they did, he saw her.

She was tall and willowy, long limbs and angles her body hadn't grown into yet. Young, too, maybe Sam's age, maybe a little older, and her hair and eyes were dark against skin that looked abnormally pale. She was quiet and unmoving and nobody he knew, and she was standing in the corner of their motel room. It took Dean a while to even process that fact, and so he didn't notice at first that the way her face glinted in the darkness was due to the tears that tracked down her cheeks and made her eyes red.

So, there was a girl. In their motel room. In her underwear, Dean noticed, when she swayed a little into the light that got in through the crack in the curtains. There was so much wrong with this picture, and it only got worse when Dean looked harder at the girl and saw the state she was in. He'd thought it was just the shadows on her skin, but now he could see bruises pretty much everywhere, scratches and cuts that criss-crossed her arms and legs, and small round marks he could swear were cigarette burns. There were red marks on her wrists and around her ankles.

"Holy fuck," he said, and when he let out the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding, the air clouded in front of him. He suddenly noticed that the temperature had gone from cool to cold; the chilly air raising the hairs up on his arms and the back of his neck.

This was more fucked up than Dean knew how to deal with; he turned to Sam and shook him awake.

"Sam, wake up." Sam made some sleepy grumbling noises and buried his face in the pillow. Dean tried again. "Sam, c'mon, wake the fuck up."

Sam scrunched his face up and said, "'m sleep, lemme 'lone." It made him look and sound all of five years old, and Dean felt a brief pang of guilt for disturbing him when he looked like that, but there was a fucking girl in their fucking room, and that kind of trumped every other concern at this point.

He grabbed at Sam's shoulder again, looked over at where the girl was still standing. She stared back at him, eyes blank and glassy, and Dean felt like maybe she seemed to flicker in and out of focus, like his eyes were blurring somehow, except everything around her stayed sharp. Sam shifted again, tried to put his arm round Dean's waist. Dean just shrugged it off and finally resorted to poking Sam hard in the ribs.

Sam groaned. "Dean, what the fuck, man? What the hell are you poking me for?"

"Sam, there's someone in our room."

"What?"

"Over there, look." Dean finally succeeded in getting Sam to sit up and look across the room. Sam blinked blearily and rubbed at his eyes.

"There's nobody there, Dean."

"What are you talking about, she's right—" Dean looked over to the corner which was, without a doubt, completely devoid of any beaten-up, half-naked crying chicks, "—there."

When he looked back the other way, Sam had an amused smile on his face. "Seeing girls in the motel room, Dean? Should I be worried? Are you trying to tell me something?"

"This isn't funny, Sam. I'm serious, she was here just a second ago."

Sam looked around with lazy eyes, clearly still amused even though this was totally not funny and starting to get really fucking creepy. "Well, she's not here now, Dean. You were probably just dreaming or something, woke up in the middle of it." He put a hand on Dean's shoulder, tried to pull him back down on the bed.

"No, Sam, she was here," Dean got out of the bed and checked the bathroom, then he pulled back the curtain to look outside in the parking lot. There was nothing to see; even the light inside the lobby had been turned off.

"Dean, there's nothing out there, okay. There's nothing in _here_. Can we please just go back to sleep?" Sam's voice was quiet, placatory, the kind you'd use to calm a spooked animal or talk a crazy person out of using the scissors they'd found. Dean wasn't crazy, though, and if he was spooked, it was with good fucking reason.

He came back over to the bed and sat down next to Sam, grabbed his arms tight. "Look, you don't understand, she was hurt, she was upset, there was something really wrong with her. We have to go find her."

Sam's expression got even more incredulous, if that were possible. "Find her? Dean, how could she even have gotten in here? The door is locked, you put the latch on. The window's not open, there's no other way in or out of this room. And even if she did manage to get in here somehow, how did she get out again without us seeing?"

"But you don't get it—"

"Dean, come on. It's late, let's just go back to sleep. Please?"

Dean didn't want to go to sleep, and he didn't want to let this go, but he had to admit there was nobody here now and the more he thought about it, the weirder and less likely it all seemed. So this time when Sam tugged at his arm, Dean let him, and this time when they fell asleep, they were curled up against one another, Sam's face tucked in the crook of Dean's neck. Dean could feel the air in the room warming up again, knew that they'd wake up tomorrow sticky and overheated, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

++

The next morning, Dean woke up to the feeling of Sam breathing against his neck, and he was just as uncomfortable as he'd thought he'd be. He pulled himself away from Sam, who murmured what sounded like the words 'sadist' and 'certifiable' in close proximity to Dean's name and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow. Dean felt a little bad when he looked over at the clock, which only read six-thirty-four, so he got up as quietly as he could and went into the bathroom.

The pipes clanked and groaned in protest when he started up the shower, and no matter how far he tried turning the hot water, it never got any better than lukewarm. Considering the heat, Dean thought this was probably a blessing in disguise, but he made a mental note to tell the motel clerk about it anyway. Let him add that to the list of reasons not to stay in this particular room, along with broken air-conditioning, a sagging mattress, and a disappearing girl.

The memory came back to him like a hit to the solar plexus. Last night, there'd been a weeping girl in their room who'd looked kind of like she'd been used as a human punching bag. Dean stumbled out of the bathtub, nearly knocking himself out in the process, and dry heaved over the toilet a few times.

When the rolling in his stomach had subsided, Dean got back under the shower spray and rested his head against the tiles, letting the tepid water sputter down onto his neck and back, as his mind wandered back to last night.

It had been a dream, according to Sam. Just a dream. Now that Dean thought about it, it _felt_ like it had been a dream. The memory, though lodged in his brain, was blurred and fuzzy round the edges; almost impossible to grasp, the way dreams so often were.

Besides, it if hadn't been a dream, then how else to explain it? Either the girl had been a product of Dean's imagination, or she was a girl who could walk through walls and locked doors. Dean knew which he thought was more likely, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling deep in his bones that something was _wrong_ here.

He didn't get any more time to think it over, though, because it was then that the shower curtain scraped back on the rail and Sam stepped in behind him.

"Thought you were sleeping," Dean said.

"I was," said Sam, and his hands wrapped around Dean from behind to roam over Dean's chest. "But it's kind of inconsiderate to expect me to stay in there by myself, when I know that you're in here naked." One of his hands moved lower, over Dean's belly and the base of his cock. Dean shuddered and leaned back into the touch.

"Inconsiderate, huh?"

Sam hummed affirmatively against Dean's shoulder, onto which his mouth was currently latched. "Yeah," he said, "Your lack of care for my emotional well-being pains me, Dean."

"Sorry about that," Dean managed to say, as Sam's hand moved on his dick, which was starting to take an active interest in the situation.

"'s alright," Sam replied, "I'll let you make it up to me." His lips moved insistently along Dean's jaw until Dean relented and turned so that they could kiss.

Sam crowded him up against the wall and pressed their bodies together; it was wet and slippery and really fucking good, even if the water was only getting cooler by the second. After a little while, Sam broke the kiss just enough to murmur against Dean's lips, "Wanna make you come."

Dean closed his eyes; shuddered and bit down on the guilt he didn't feel enough of anymore. He said, "Better do it quick, then. Think this is gonna become a cold shower any minute now."

Sure enough, the water turned icy soon after that, but Sam got him off anyway, somehow, and when the water pressure finally gave out completely, they stood in the bathtub kissing until the encroaching heat of the day dried the water from their skins.

++

They spent the day walking around the CU campus—the parts of it that were still open, at least—and hanging out at some of Dean's old haunts in town. Sam hadn't visited much when Dean had been in college, so it was all fairly new to him, and Dean was just glad to be back. He didn't think he believed all that bull about college being the best time of his life (if it was, why even bother with the remaining sixty years?), but he couldn't deny it had been less complicated than everything else, even if he had spent his days figuring out flexural strengths and coefficients of thermal expansion. He was thinking about going back, getting a Master's maybe. A couple of places on the East coast had good graduate Engineering programs. The fact that it was pretty much an entire country away from Stanford wasn't something he'd deliberately considered, but he guessed it could only be for the best. He hadn't told Sam.

They ran into a couple of Dean's buddies who still lived close by and wound up going for a drink with them. They were meeting with a bunch of other people, some of whom Dean knew, albeit vaguely. Sam had this fake ID he'd bought from a kid back home but it seemed like he was tall enough for people not to even bother carding him, and they got into the bar without any trouble.

Dean's friend Noah had been a Lit major, and so it wasn't too long before he and Sam were embroiled in some endless discussion about whether Faulkner's greatest work was _The Sound and the Fury_ or _Absalom! Absalom!_ Personally, Dean had found them both horribly confusing, but talking books made Sam's face light up like a goddamn Christmas tree, so he just left them to it and got into it with some of the other guys about the Buffs' chances this season.

After a couple of beers and shifts in conversation, he ended up sat with this one girl, Claudia, who he'd gone out with a few times at the end of junior year. It hadn't really gone anywhere before she'd left to do a semester abroad, but she was acting pretty friendly right now, flirting easily with Dean when he asked about her time in Barcelona.

And Dean was good at this – good at asking the kind of questions that would get girls talking freely, without sounding like he was getting too personal too quickly; good at sneaking in compliments that were direct but not too forward; good at getting girls to smile and laugh and lean in close to hear the things he said in low, intimate tones. He _missed_ this. Simple and straight-forward and no need to worry about who could see. Guilt-free and without shame.

From across the room, he could positively feel the way Sam was staring at him.

He bought Claudia another rum and coke and laid a hand on her arm when she tried to pay him back. She laughed and said she could afford her own drinks, thank you very much, but she put her purse away again and _god_ , this was so _simple_.

Eventually, of course, Sam came over to sit with them. He'd had a couple too many Coors and he was acting just enough like a jealous boyfriend rather than a brother that Dean decided they should probably call it a night.

He said goodbye to everybody, promised to come back and visit again soon, gave Claudia a kiss on the cheek in spite of Sam's increasingly hostile expression.

The sun was just starting to sink toward the horizon when they got outside, bathing everything in warm orange light. Sam stalked over to the car and fumbled with the keys until Dean took them from his hands.

"Like I'm letting you drive," Dean said.

Sam scowled and said, "I'm _fine_ , Dean," but he got in the passenger seat without a fuss when Dean refused to give him back the keys.

They drove in silence for a few minutes before Dean cleared his throat and asked Sam what he wanted for dinner. Sam just shrugged and didn't meet Dean's eyes. "Whatever," he said.

Dean sighed and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. There were probably several important things he should have been saying right now, but all that came out was, "Pizza?" Sam shrugged again, which Dean took as a yes. He took them to a sit-down place he and his roommate Simon had visited a lot, usually when the cafeteria food didn't look too appealing; partly because the pizza was good, but mostly because the silence of the motel room would have been too much right now. At least here he could make small talk with the waitress. Not that that would help any.

As it turned out, their waitress was either having a crappy day or she was just naturally bad with people, because any idea Dean had about small talk went out the window when she barked out the specials and took their drink orders with about as much good grace as a cat you'd just given a bath to. When she'd dumped their sodas on the table, she left them alone again to decide what they wanted to eat, and it was back to awkward silence and Sam's sullen expression.

When Sam didn't respond to queries about what kind of pizza they should get, Dean sighed and said, "We were just talking, Sammy," because it was true. He wouldn't have done anything, he didn't even really want to. The fact that he sometimes wished he felt otherwise wasn't something he needed to share with Sam, even if he was fairly certain Sam knew it anyway.

Sure enough, when he risked a glance up at his brother, there was that look in his eyes. The one that made Dean squirm, the one that said, _I know you_.

Dean shifted in his seat and sipped at soda which had too much ice in it. When he'd finished, Sam was still staring at him. "I don't know what you want from me," he blurted out, when he'd meant to say nothing at all.

Sam's expression was more sad, now, than angry. "Then you're an idiot," he said, "I want olives."

Dean hated olives, but he ordered a pizza that was covered with them anyway, because he knew that if they didn't share, Sam probably wouldn't order anything for himself.

Midway through his third olive-infested slice, Dean leant forward and kissed Sam on the mouth. He got tomato on his t-shirt and spilt what was left of Sam's Dr Pepper (he could see the waitress glaring daggers at him from over by the countertop), and when they were done cleaning it up with a stack of napkins, Sam called him an idiot again. Only this time there was a smile tugging at the corner of his lips and, under the table, their knees bumped together companionably.

The olives still tasted disgusting, and the waitress was still giving them the stink eye, but Dean felt pretty sure it had been worth it.

++

Dean drove them back to the motel, because despite Sam's insistence that the pizza had totally soaked up the alcohol, he fell into a doze in the passenger seat within about a minute of Dean pulling away from the restaurant's parking lot, just like Dean had thought he would. The faint glow of light that still lingered in the sky had disappeared completely by the time they got back to their room and closed the door behind them, and Dean figured he'd suggest they just go to bed right away, so tomorrow they could get an early start.

While Sam was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, there was a heavy knock on the door. When Dean opened it, a man was standing there in well-worn jeans and a leather jacket, scuffed up duffel bag at his feet.

"Hi there!"

He was smiling, altogether too eager and ingratiating for someone who didn't want anything, so Dean prepared himself for some kind of sales pitch. Though he had to wonder what kind of salesman sold door-to-door at a freaking motel at this time of night, especially while wearing jeans and work boots and plaid. Maybe he was selling lumberjack supplies, though he didn't really _look_ too much like a lumberjack – more like John Denver or one of those hippy types, shaggy fair hair and the kind of eyes that crinkled at the corners.

"Can we help you?"

The guy scratched at the back of his neck and said, "Well, now, this is kind of awkward, but see, I'm staying just down the hall, except I had kind of originally planned on staying in _this_ room for the next couple of nights, and I was wondering if maybe I could persuade you boys to, you know, switch with me?"

Dean just stared at him for a moment; then he smiled, though he wasn't really sure he got the joke. "You're kidding, right?" he said.

Hippy-guy smiled back. "Not at all."

Dean blinked. "Can I ask why?"

"You can ask," said the guy, and then went back to smiling congenially.

Dean waited again for the punch line, and when one wasn't forthcoming, he said, "I'm sorry; you're asking us to change rooms with you, right now? Without even telling us why?"

The man nodded. "I know it might seem a little crazy," he said, with a chuckle, and Dean had to agree with him there, "But I have my reasons for needing the room, and ... I'm guessing you don't care too much either way, so if you could see your way to helping me out, I'd be grateful." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a battered brown leather billfold. "I'd be happy to reimburse you the cost of the room, for your trouble. But I really, really need this room."

There was an edge to his voice Dean had only just noticed, and it unnerved him in a way he didn't want to think about too closely. "Look, it's late," he said, "and we're leaving in the morning anyway, so you'll be able to have the room for as long as you want after that, okay?"

Just as Dean was about to say goodbye and close the door on whatever it was the guy was about to say next, Sam came out from the bathroom and said, "What's going on?"

"This guy wants us to switch rooms with him," said Dean, feeling more uncomfortable by the second.

Sam started to laugh, but stopped when he saw the look on the guy's face. "What? Are you serious?"

"Very," said the guy, and Dean could tell that he really, really meant it.

"Well, sorry, man, guess you're going to have to make do with the one you've got." Sam started to push the door closed. "Have a good night."

The hippy put one hand on the door to stop it from closing. Dean noticed that he had bruised knuckles and gauze on two of his fingers. He glanced over the guy, just to check, and took in at least three other obvious injuries (bruised neck, split lip, what looked like a faded black eye), which really did nothing at all to alleviate his increasing sense of unease.

"Look, boys, I really think you're going to want to let me have this room," the guy said, and his eyes had gone from light and affable to really frigging intense in the space of a few seconds. "I really think you're going to regret it if you don't."

The guy's face was completely serious, and his eyes were intense, yeah, but not crazy with it, and suddenly all Dean could think of was the girl he'd seen last night. No matter what Sam might say, Dean was sure she'd been real, and now two people had said that staying in this room was a bad idea. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask this guy why, but before he could, Sam said, "Well, if we do, we'll be sure and let you know so you can get in an 'I told you so,' okay?"

The guy just stood there, staring at Dean like he knew what was going through his mind. Dean thought that maybe he did. After a few seconds, he said, "Alright then. Don't say I didn't warn you," and reached down to heft his duffel bag onto his shoulder.

"We won't," Sam said.

The guy took a couple of steps backwards and said, "If you change your mind, I'm in room twelve, just down the hall." He was looking Dean straight in the eye. "I mean it," he said, "You just let me know."

Sam shut the door, and after a couple of seconds they heard the heavy tread of the man's boots on the pavement outside. When that was followed by the open-and-shut sound of a door, Sam turned to Dean and said, "God, what is it with the people here? First nobody wants the damn room, then somebody wants it so bad they come knocking for it? What a freak."

Dean nodded along vaguely, but he had this feeling, like make the guy had _known_ what Dean had seen last night. He frowned and said, "I guess, but ... maybe we ought to have heard him out a bit more."

Sam looked at him incredulously. "You want to give the crazy beat-up guy our room? Just because he asked? He probably had body parts in that duffel or something."

"Yeah, but there was something about him, he just seemed so sincere."

"So do most serial killers, probably," Sam said, with finality, walking over to turn on the TV. There was an episode of _The X-Files_ on and Sam settled on the bed in front of it, grabbing at Dean's hand until he joined him.

They watched one episode (it involved a plane crash – Dean was not impressed) and then another, but before a third could even get past the title sequence, Dean was dozing, and then Sam was turning off the television, and Dean only had time to think to himself that sleeping in their clothes was probably a terrible idea before he slipped into unconsciousness.

++

This time when he woke up—deeply uncomfortable and sticky with sweat, because yes, indeed, going to sleep fully clothed had been a terrible, _terrible_ idea—it was because Sam was shaking him and saying something that ended with: "—fucking wake up already."

Dean wiped sleep away from his eyes, felt his neck click from the awkward position he'd been in and got as far as, "Wha—" before Sam said, "Dean, there's something in the room."

Dean was suddenly, completely awake, and his eyes immediately fixed on the corner of the room in which he'd seen the girl the night before. It was empty—nothing there but the dresser and Sam's crap piled on top of it. The temperature had dropped significantly, though, just like before, and Sam's eyes were wide and frightened.

"Did you see her?" he asked. Sam flinched and shook his head.

"No, I didn't see anything," he said, "But I heard her—somebody crying, I think, and then something brushed up against my arm."

Dean looked down at the arm in question, Sam's left, and in the moonlight from the window he could see a cluster of short, jagged scratches across Sam's forearm, just under his elbow. They didn't look deep, but they glistened in the silver light and when Dean put his fingers against the shine, they came away dark with blood.

"Christ, Sam, you're bleeding. What the hell?"

Sam shook his head again, so that his hair fell across his eyes. Dean reached out on instinct to brush it away, but as he did, something cold and hard grabbed onto his wrist and wrenched him out of the bed.

He fell hard on his shoulder; not enough to damage anything, he didn't think, but pain jarred, sharp and intense, all the way up his arm so that his fingers tingled with it.

He heard Sam saying his name and the rustle of the bed sheets. When he looked up, Sam was there, and Dean put the hand that wasn't numb with pain up to rest on his brother's chest.

"I'm okay, Sammy," he said.

"Dean, what's happening?"

"I got no fucking clue," Dean said, "Maybe—" but before he could finish, Sam took in a sharp breath and said, "Dean, look."

At the foot of the bed, still and silent, was the girl from the night before. Except the marks Dean had seen on her body looked even worse now than they had then – there was a deep, angry wound on her belly, another on her thigh. The bruises had worsened; purple, mottled skin covering her face and upper body. The red marks on her wrists and ankles had gotten worse too and now that Dean could see them more clearly, they looked like rope burn. Where her hands had only been scratched before; now it looked like she had fingernails missing. She was cut up and bruised and burnt and battered, and Dean could hardly stand to even look at her.

After a few seconds, Sam swallowed hard and said to her, "What do you want?"

The girl turned her head, slowly, to look at them. Chest heaving as she drew in a laboured breath, she opened her cracked lips wide and screamed. Except, what came out was muffled and indistinct, like there was something in her mouth stopping her from making the sound she'd intended. It was quite possibly the creepiest thing Dean had ever heard.

Dean wasn't sure exactly what happened next, except that the girl was gone as abruptly as she'd appeared, and that all of a sudden, Sam was clutching at one hand and making garbled sounds of pain.

"Sam," Dean said urgently, "Sammy, what's wrong?" When Sam pulled his right hand away to reveal his left, there was a space of tender pink skin tinged with blood where one of his fingernails had been.

"Jesus," Dean muttered, looking wildly around the room. It was still empty, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way for long. Dean felt sick and his head pounded from where he'd knocked it against the floor, and somewhere in this room he could still hear the sound of the girl's muted screaming, desperate and low.

"Come on," he said, "We've got to get out of here." He grabbed at Sam's arm and pulled him to his feet, careful not to touch any of the places Sam was hurt, which seemed to be several more than it had been five minutes ago.

Dean didn't think they'd locked the door before they'd gone to bed, but when they tried the handle, it wouldn't budge. Sam still had the key in his pocket, but it wouldn't even turn in the lock and no matter what they tried, the door remained firmly in place.

Just when Dean was about to start screaming for help, from outside there came the sound of a man's voice. "Hey, can you hear me? Are you okay in there?"

Dean was so surprised to hear anybody, that he found it hard to say anything more coherent than, "She's here, she's in here, I think she's going to kill us." Sam didn't say anything, just stood there breathing hard and holding his undamaged hand to the scratches on his left arm which, Dean noticed, were now bleeding freely.

The voice said, "Can you open the door?"

Dean tried again. The handle stayed firm. "No," he replied, "It's jammed."

"Okay," the voice said, "I'm going to push the door from this side, while you pull it from yours, okay?"

By the time Dean had fully understood what the voice was saying, it repeated, "You pull and I'll push, okay?"

"Yeah," said Dean, finally, "Yeah, okay."

"On three, ready?"

Wiping his sweaty palms off on his t-shirt first, Dean put both hands on the door knob and prayed they wouldn't slip. Behind the door, the voice counted _one, two, three_ and Dean pulled so hard he was surprised he didn't dislocate a shoulder or two. The door stuck, stubbornly, for what felt like endless seconds before something finally seemed to give and it fell open. The guy who came tumbling through and onto the floor was the shaggy-haired hippy who'd knocked on their door earlier. He had what looked like a fireplace poker in one hand.

"Hello, boys," he said from his position on the carpet.

"What the fuck is this?" Dean demanded, because like hell this was just a coincidence. But before he could say anything more, the air in front of them flickered and blurred, until in the midst of it all, the girl appeared again.

"Run now," said the guy, "Ask questions later." He pushed himself up from the floor and stepped towards the girl, lifting the poker in both hands over his shoulder to swing at her. When he did, Dean winced in anticipation of the sickening _thud_ of metal on skin and bone, but instead, as the poker swung through the space where she stood, the girl seemed to disappear in a swirl of grey smoke.

"What the—" Dean started, but the man turned to them both then and said, "Get outside," in the kind of voice it was always best to obey.

They stuffed their feet into the shoes they'd left by the door and staggered out of the room into the parking lot. The bleeding on Sam's arm seemed to have stopped as abruptly as it had started, and Dean could no longer hear the sound of screaming. They stood, and waited, and didn't speak.

After a few more seconds, the man came out with empty hands, breathing hard and smiling.

"So," he said, "you boys ready to let me have that room yet?" Dean just stared, could feel Sam pressed up tight behind him, heart beating fast and erratic against Dean's back. The guy didn't seem perturbed by their lack of reaction, just chuckled to himself and dusted off his clothes.

"What the hell was that?" Dean said eventually, and he was pretty proud of the fact that his voice came out at all.

"That?" Hippy guy turned down the corners of his mouth, considering. "That was a ghost. Pretty angry one, too. I mean, I've seen worse, but—"

Dean had lost the plot sometime around the word 'ghost.' He held up one hand and said, "I'm sorry, what?"

The guy smiled again. "Well, look at me getting ahead of myself—why don't we start with an introduction?" He wiped one hand off on his already questionable jeans and then held it out towards Dean. "I'm Bill," he said.

Dean took the proffered hand and shook it slowly: Bill's skin was rough with calluses and his grip was firm, but it was a warm shake, friendly and reassuring, and Dean felt a little better in spite of himself. "Dean," he said, "This is Sam." Bill offered his hand out to Sam as well, but let it fall again when Sam didn't take it.

Dean turned to look at his brother; Sam's face was white as chalk, his eyes too wide, his jaw so slack it should have been comical, but wasn't.

Bill looked at Sam with concern. "You alright, kid?" he said.

Sam blinked, like he was coming out of a daze, and then his face hardened into a scowl. "Alright?" he spat out, " _Alright?_ Of course I'm not fucking alright. I've just been scratched half to hell by some fucking crazy chick lurking in our motel room, then you burst in like you _knew_ it was going to happen, and now you're feeding us some bullshit line about a fucking _ghost_?" Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Exactly what part of that am I supposed to feel alright about?"

Bill's face remained affable, but there was an edge to what he said next: "Bullshit, huh? Tell me, you got a better explanation for what just happened, son?"

Sam didn't say anything.

"That's what I thought," Bill said. "Now, you kids have had a scare and I appreciate that, but unless you can come up with some pretty compelling evidence to suggest otherwise, I reckon you're just going to have to go with me on this one. Think you can do that?"

 _No_ , Dean thought, _no, because this is insane and you're a lunatic and ghosts don't exist and none of this makes sense,_ but what actually came out of his mouth in a slightly hysterical sounding tone was, "A ghost? Seriously?"

Bill hesitated for a moment before saying, "You want the truth or the whole truth?"

Dean swallowed, hopelessly confused. "There's a difference?"

"Sure there is," said Bill, "The truth is pretty simple: yes, that was a ghost in your room tonight and yes, she was trying to kill you, at least as far as I can tell."

Dean was still taking a moment to process all of that (largely unsuccessfully) when Sam said, tremulously, "And the whole truth?"

"Well, that's a mite more complicated, I have to say," Bill said, "You sure you wanna know?"

Dean wasn't sure, not in the least, and he could tell by the look on his face that Sam wasn't either, but he couldn't exactly let a night like this go. If 'Bill' had an explanation for what the hell was going on, then Dean was going to hear it.

"Yeah," he said, "We're sure."

"Okey-dokey," said Bill, altogether too cheerfully, and he moved to lean against the side of what Dean assumed was his truck. Like the rest of him, it was dusty and careworn. "Listen closely," he went on, "'Cause I hate repeating myself, and just ... remember what you saw tonight, okay?"

++

In short, the "whole truth" taught Dean the following important things:

1) Ghosts were real.

2) So were ghouls, poltergeists, werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters, witches (black and white), demons, boogeymen, zombies, and possibly (though Bill couldn't say for sure, it had been a long time since anybody had seen one) abominable snowmen.

3) Bill knew all of this because he was, apparently, an honest to god Ghostbuster, and spent his time finding and killing the kinds of things Dean and Sam spent a lot of time laughing at whenever they watched _The X-Files_ or _Twilight Zone_.

4) Bill was almost certainly unbalanced.

5) Unfortunately, based on what was now personal experience, it did not necessarily seem to follow that he was telling them anything but the truth.

6) Dean's life could officially get no weirder without alien abduction being involved. Which seemed like a distinctly less insane possibility now than it had earlier today.

 

When Bill was done talking (and showing them the secret compartment in the bed of his truck, which would have put Buffy the frickin' Vampire Slayer to shame), he looked at them both, his expression unreadable except for the glint of apprehension that showed in his eyes, and said, "You boys need to sit down?" with his voice low, like he didn't want to spook them out any more than he already had.

Dean didn't need to sit down. Dean needed alcohol and cigarettes and a truckload of therapy, or possibly just for somebody to pinch him so he'd wake up. But for now, he supposed, sitting down would probably not be a bad thing. Beside him, Sam was nodding vaguely.

"That would be ... good," Sam said, and Dean was glad one of them had retained the use of their vocal chords at this trying time.

Because _god_. Ghosts were _real_. Dean tried not to stumble as he clambered alongside Sam into the cab of Bill's truck. He was kind of mostly successful. He thought that was pretty good.

++

They went to an all-night diner down the street and ordered coffee. The place was practically empty, except for one wrecked-looking trucker seated at the counter, and the group of kids in the corner who clearly had a serious case of the munchies, and who kept asking the waitress to bring over pancakes, despite her repeated insistence that they didn't start serving breakfast until four. It was a shame, actually, because Dean thought the waffles here looked pretty good, but he wasn't sure he could keep anything down right now, so it was probably for the best. He sipped at his coffee instead and watched as Bill tempered his own cup with a liberal amount of cream and three packets of sugar. It seemed incongruous for someone who looked like he did, but Dean figured appearances probably didn't mean much by this point anyhow.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Dean cleared his throat and said, "Okay, so, just suppose we believe for a moment that you are _not_ certifiably insane."

"Thanks, I appreciate that," said Bill, cheerily.

"Say we believe you, and that really was a ghost back there," Dean continued.

Bill nodded. "Say you do."

"Well, then, why is it there? Who is it?" Dean said; then—because he wasn't entirely sure of the correct etiquette when it came to ghosts—he tentatively added, "She?"

"Now that, I can't tell you," said Bill, "At least, not yet."

"Why not?"

Bill grimaced as he took a sip of coffee – Dean figured he didn't really like the stuff, just drank it when he needed the caffeine, same as Dad. "Well, I only got into town last night," Bill said, "Hadn't had much time to do any digging before you boys ran into trouble. So I can tell you what she is, but not who."

"But you're going to find out?" said Sam, uncertainly.

"That's the general idea," Bill said, "In fact," he reached into one of the many pockets of his jacket and pulled out a notebook and pencil. "I could start with you two, if you don't mind." He looked up at them both encouragingly. "If you could just tell me everything you saw in the motel room, that'd be a great help."

Dean swallowed more coffee. It wasn't hot enough for his liking, but he'd take what he could get, right now. "Where do you want us to start?" he asked.

"How about what she looked like?" said Bill.

"Didn't you see her yourself?" Sam asked.

Bill smiled at him and said, "Was too busy saving your skins to get a good look, now, wasn't I?" and they couldn't really argue with that.

They told Bill everything that had happened; the way she'd looked, the marks on her body; when and where they'd seen her. Bill nodded along with all of it, jotting things down in his notebook and sipping at his coffee. By the time they'd finished, Bill's cup was empty, and the waitress came over to offer him a refill, and to let them know that breakfast was now being served. Bill thanked her with a smile and a wink and said they'd have a look at the menu.

When she'd gone, Sam said quietly, "Does that help?"

Bill smiled as he put the notebook away again. "Should do," he said, "It's a start, anyway, but there's a lot more I need to find out."

Dean suddenly had a thought. "The motel clerk told us that somebody had been found dead in that room once," he said, "Could that be her?"

Bill shook his head. "I talked to him myself, looked it up as well. Only one person's ever been found dead there, but it was a couple years after the rumours of the haunting started, and the person involved was a nineteen year-old boy."

"How did he die?" Sam asked.

"Apparently heart failure," said Bill, "But the body was covered all over with bruises and cuts, kind of like your description of our girl. None of them would have been enough to kill him, but they definitely weren't accidental."

"And you think this ... ghost, did that?" Dean said.

Bill gestured to indicate the cuts and scratches he and Sam were both sporting. "Looks that way to me," he said.

Sam blanched. "You mean, back at the room, she was really trying to kill us?"

"Trying, yeah," Bill said, "But don't worry, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have succeeded."

"Pretty sure?" Dean repeated, incredulously, just as Sam also said, "What makes you say that?"

Bill leaned forward and rested his clasped hands on the table. Dean looked again at the bruised knuckles and taped up fingers. He wondered what particular supernatural encounter those were the result of.

Bill cocked his head. "This was your second night in that room, right?"

Dean nodded.

"Well, the kid who died, he'd stayed there three."

Dean felt like he was missing an important piece of whatever puzzle Bill was trying to solve. "What does that have to do with anything?" he said.

Bill stirred another packet of sugar into his coffee and replied, "See, the thing about ghosts is that they follow patterns. Pretty strict ones, in my experience. And often, the way it works is that the ghost's actions get more violent, more dangerous as their cycle goes on. Which would explain why she didn't do much more than stand there on the first night, while on the second she was looking to do some damage."

"And what, on the third night – she kills you?"

Bill nodded slowly. "Right," he said, "Looks like it's a seventy-two hour thing, you know, for whoever checks in. Stay three nights and you won't live to see another."

There was a long silence, which Dean spent trying to get his mind around everything.

Eventually, Sam said, "So, before, when you asked us to switch motel rooms … guess you were trying to do us a favour, huh?" There was a slightly guilty tone to his voice.

Bill just smiled and said, "Yeah, something like that. Guess it backfired on me a little—you probably thought I was a serial killer, right?"

Dean opened his mouth to lie, say "no, of course not," but Bill's face was open and amused, and so he smiled sheepishly instead and said, "Yeah, kind of."

Bill threw back his head and laughed out loud. Across the room, the stoner guys looked over in surprise and then started laughing along with him despite having no idea why, as only ridiculously high people could. "Hey, not your fault," said Bill, when he was done chuckling. "I was a little over-zealous, I admit. Normally I'd come up with some great excuse to get you out of the room—a gas leak or something—but I was a little short on time, thought the direct approach might just work." He smiled ruefully at them. "Not sure why, it hardly ever does."

"Sounds like you've done this before."

"More times than I care to remember." Dean thought he heard the slightest tinge of regret in Bill's voice. Mostly, though, he still just looked amused.

There was another silence, in which Bill, ostensibly, started studying the menu. Under the table, Dean bumped his knee against Sam's. Sam bumped back, keeping his leg there afterwards so that their thighs were pressed together on the seat. It helped a little.

"So, what happens now?" Dean asked, when Bill looked up again from the ham and eggs special.

"Well, I'll have to start looking for our mystery girl, see what I can find out about her."

"What does that involve?" Sam asked.

"Obituaries, newspaper articles, talk to the police, the usual." Bill sighed and scratched at his head. "I hate the damn research part."

"Can we—" Sam hesitated a moment. Bill looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Can we help? With anything?"

Bill blinked. "You wanna help me?" He sounded confused. Dean could relate.

Sam just shrugged. "Yeah, if you need us to."

Bill smiled. "It'll probably be quicker if I just do it myself," he said. The smile faded as his expression got serious again, "But I think you're gonna need to stick around for a spell before I can let you go, if that'll be okay with you. I'm not totally sure if it's safe for you to go back to the room during the day, and I would hate for anything worse to happen to you than it has already."

"Thanks, that's considerate of you," Dean said, a little more sarcastically than he'd meant to, because as far as he could tell Bill was just looking out for their best interests, but _god_ this situation was _fucked_. Bill's smile didn't falter, though, and when he spoke there wasn't even a hint of annoyance.

"I know this is a bad night, boys, a real bad night, and I hate to prolong it like this, but if you could just see your way to letting me find out what's going on before you go back in there, I'd be real grateful."

There was something reassuring in Bill's expression that Dean found himself responding to. For no discernible reason—well, except for the part where he'd saved their lives tonight—Dean felt like he could trust what Bill was saying. It was kind of like when Dad had told him that he'd checked for monsters under the bed, and that there weren't any, and that Dean could go to sleep. Except, based on what Bill was saying, Dad had possibly been wrong about the monsters, but all the same the trust had been there, unspoken yet steady as a rock. He felt it now, too, and he wondered if maybe Bill was somebody's father.

Dean nodded and said, "Okay," with a little less resolve than he'd hoped. Sam didn't say anything, but when Dean glanced over at him, he was nodding too.

"Great!" said Bill, as his smile widened once more. He picked up the menu again. "You boys hungry? Because I am starved."

Dean still felt like food was an impossibility, but they ordered anyway, waffles and eggs and oatmeal for Sam (who was still looking paler than he should've), and Dean found that once it was put in front of him, he was pretty ravenous himself.

They ate slowly, light creeping in from outside until by the time they'd finished, the room was filled with the warm glow of sunrise.

++

Dean and Sam spent the day in Bill's motel room, four doors down from their own, waiting for him to get back from city hall, or wherever it was that people went to find out how other people had been murdered and where they were buried. Dean was pretty comfortable admitting he wasn't an expert on those things, actually.

They flicked through television channels, watching the tail ends of crappy movies and reruns of shows they'd seen before, unable to settle on any one thing for very long. Occasionally, Sam turned a couple of pages in the book he had propped open against his knees, but Dean was pretty sure he hadn't read a single word.

Eventually they gave up on trying to do anything and just lay side by side on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. There was a patch of damp spreading from the far right corner of the room all the way across the ceiling above Dean's head.

After a while, Sam rolled over onto his side and said, "I'm sorry."

Dean turned his head to the left and looked his brother in the eye. Sam's hair was in his face and he was worrying a thumbnail in between his teeth. He looked like the baby brother he was always trying to pretend that he wasn't.

"Sorry for what?" Dean said.

"The other night, I didn't believe you about the girl."

Dean blinked a couple of times and said, a little confused, "Sam, I told you I saw a girl standing in the corner of our locked motel room, who somehow magically vanished as soon as I tried to point her out to you. Can't say I really blame you for being sceptical, dude."

"I guess." Sam stared fixedly at the thumbnail he'd been biting. He'd gotten down to the quick, and the skin of his thumb looked pink and sore, so Dean took his hand in one of his own and laid them both on the bed. Sam stared at that instead, and they were silent for a stretch. Dean listened to the murmur of the people next door and the cars that drove by outside.

"You ever see a ghost before?" Sam asked, suddenly.

Dean raised one eyebrow. "You mean before one tried to pummel me to death last night?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Obviously."

"I don't think so," Dean said. He rolled over so that they were lying face to face. "Why, have you?"

The answer, when it came, was a surprise. "Maybe."

Dean sat up on the bed and stared at Sam in disbelief. "What? When?"

"You remember David Shepherd?"

Dean nodded. David Shepherd was a kid in their neighbourhood who'd gone missing the day Sam had started elementary school. After a couple of days, people had started saying they'd seen him all over town, but then they'd dragged the lake and found his body, dead for at least a week. No one had seen him again after that except his parents, and in that instance everybody agreed grief did funny things to people.

"I saw him," Sam said. "Out in the street one day. He was just standing there, looking at me. Freaked me out."

Dean shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "Why didn't you say anything?" he said.

"I tried. No one believed me," Sam said. "Mom told me she did, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better."

Now that Dean thought about it, he remembered how the whole thing had given Sam nightmares so bad that their mother had sung him to sleep every night for a week, like when he was a baby. Dean had teased him no end, at the time.

"I'm sorry," he said, when he couldn't think of anything else.

Sam smiled wanly. "It's okay," he said, sitting up to lean against the headboard. "Guess we're even now, huh?"

"Guess we are." Dean smiled back at him, and moved so that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder.

They sat in silence again, heard the toilet flush next door and a plane flying low overhead. Dean yawned and rested his head against the wall. It had been a long day, even if all they'd done was sit around and wait, and they hadn't yet caught up on the sleep they'd missed. When Sam next spoke, it startled Dean out of the beginnings of a light doze.

"Hey," Sam said, waiting for Dean to open his eyes again before he carried on. "You think this means that old Mrs. Jameson isn't actually crazy after all?"

Mrs. Jameson was a woman who lived down the street from them, who'd been insisting for years that her dead husband's spirit was living in her refrigerator.

"No, I'm pretty sure she's still crazy," Dean countered. Last month she'd had someone come in to dig up all the shrubs and flowers in her backyard, because she said fairies were hiding in them and giving her trouble. Except, maybe—but no. Bill hadn't said a goddamn thing about _fairies_.

Sam laughed. "You're probably right." He smiled at Dean, wider and brighter than before. Dean thought about kissing him, but it was at that moment that the key turned in the lock and Bill walked through the door.

Dean shifted so that he and Sam weren't sat quite as close to one another. Bill was giving them the same look Dean had seen on his face several times last night; curious, almost appraising, as if he were trying to figure them out, and not coming up with an answer that satisfied him. That look only lasted a fraction of a second, though, before he gave them a friendly smile and a "Hey there, boys," in greeting.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Sam asked, moving to sit at the edge of the bed.

"I sure hope so," Bill said, reaching inside his jacket to an inside pocket, from which he produced a crumpled piece of paper. He held it out to Dean and said, "This her?"

Dean unfolded a photocopy of what looked like an obituary. There was a grainy black and white picture of the deceased, coupled with some short paragraphs about her life and a note on when the burial and memorial service would be held. The girl in the photograph was the one Dean had seen in the motel, he was sure of it. He handed the paper back to Bill.

"Yeah, that's her, definitely," he said. Next to him, Sam nodded in agreement. "Her name was Laura?" Dean asked. Knowing her name didn't make it worse, exactly, it just made it … weirder. Last night a girl named Laura tried to kill them from beyond the grave for who knew what reason. Dean found it hard to get his head around that.

Bill nodded. "Local girl. Died about ten years ago."

"At the motel?" Sam said.

Bill hesitated for a moment, looking at them both thoughtfully, before he spoke. "Look," he said, "You seem like nice boys. Smart, too. The way you've taken all of this in, it's—well, it's impressive." Dean wondered just how badly other people took it, if his and Sam's reaction could be considered 'impressive.'

"And I'm grateful to you for the help you've been," Bill went on, "but there's really no need for you to stick around anymore. As far as I can tell, there's gonna be no repercussions for you if you leave. She ain't gonna follow you or nothing." He smiled at them, warm and sincere. "So it's probably best if you boys head out, now. Put all this behind you."

Before Dean could even consider how he wanted to respond, Sam said, "No," beside him. The surprise on Bill's face was probably only matched by what Dean assumed could be seen on his own. Sam shook his head vehemently at Bill. "No way," he repeated.

Bill's eyebrows made a fair attempt at disappearing up into his hairline. "I didn't exactly mean for this to be up for discussion."

"Well, you can't just expect us to just _leave_. Not after last night," Sam said.

"Actually, that was pretty much exactly what I was expecting," Bill replied, "And like I said, I think it's probably for the best – there's no reason you need to get involved in this—"

"And I say that we already _are_ involved in this, and we have every reason to want to stay and see it through," Sam said, with surprising fervour.

Bill just looked at him, that curious expression on his face again. "You think so?" he said.

"Yes, I do," Sam said. "Look, last night sucked, alright? Like, a lot. And if you say you can stop it from happening to anybody else, then we want to be a part of doing that. Not to mention, you saved both our lives. Be the least we could do."

Bill didn't say anything. Sam ran one hand through his hair. He was gearing himself up to fight this, Dean could tell. He'd seen it enough times with Dad to know the signs.

Sam huffed out a breath and went on when Bill remained silent. "Look, I'm guessing that maybe you have a family? People you want to get home to?" Dean wasn't sure where Sam had gleaned this information from—unless it was the pale band of un-weathered skin on Bill's left ring finger—but while Bill's eyes narrowed, he nodded and didn’t refute it. "Well, let us help you," Sam said, "You'll get it done faster with a couple extra pairs of hands, right?"

Suddenly, Bill's face broke into a smile, and he was laughing like he couldn't help himself. "Debatable," he said when he was done, "but okay."

The look on Sam's face was almost comically taken aback, and while Dean was grateful to Bill for not giving Sam the fight he'd clearly been anticipating, this could only mean they were apparently going to be coming along for the rest of Bill's ghost hunt or whatever, and Dean wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"Really?" said Sam, looking a little dazed, "You'll let us help?"

"If I don't, you gonna go home like I said?"

Sam's mouth turned up a little at the corners. "Probably not."

"Didn't think so," Bill said, smiling ruefully, "Look, I ain't one to shun help when it's offered, and if you boys really feel like you wanna be a part of this," his eyes flitted over to Dean at that point, like he could sense Dean wasn't quite as sold as Sam, "then I'm not gonna be the one to stop you. Besides," he added, his smile getting a little broader, "I get the feeling any fight with you ain't one I'm gonna be winning, Sam." Sam tilted his chin up a little defiantly, but Bill was still smiling at him, and he said, "I got a daughter's just the same." Dean wondered about her for a moment. If she knew about the ghosts, if she helped him with it sometimes, if maybe this was an argument Bill was used to having, and losing.

"Anyway," Bill continued, "Long as you stay sharp, do exactly what I say at all times, and don't ask too many dumb questions, you can help. If you're sure."

Sam nodded adamantly. Bill looked over at Dean.

"How about you?" he said. Sam looked over, expectant, and frowned a little when Dean didn't answer right away.

"Dean," he said, almost reproachfully.

And the thing was that Dean got it, he did. He understood why Sam wanted to do this, why he felt like they needed to see it through to the end, and Dean wanted to help, too. Except, there was another part of his brain—quieter but no less insistent—telling him that this was just the start of something more; something which they might not be able to walk away from later. It was an inchoate feeling, though, one that he wasn't sure he'd be able to explain without sounding vague and over dramatic.

He thought about refusing. Stepping back and saying 'no' and forcing Sam into the car and back home, inevitable sulking be damned, but that idea didn't sit well either. In spite of everything, he wanted to know how this would end. He felt like he needed to.

He met Bill's eyes square on and said, "Yes. We're sure." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam smiling.

Bill held his gaze for a couple of seconds, testing his resolve, then nodded at them both and said, "Okay, well, let's get to it."

++

Dean started regretting his decision as soon as Bill told them a little bit more about Laura Blake and why, exactly, she was haunting the Roadview Motel.

They were sitting around the wobbly table in Bill's room, over which the bulk of Bill's research into Laura's life and death was currently spread. There was a lot of it, and Dean couldn't help but notice that it apparently included crime scene photos and autopsy reports. Dean wasn't sure if knowing how Bill had gotten them would make this situation better or worse. Next to him, Sam was geeking out the same way he used to do over his homework, until puberty hit and 'homework' had become something of a dirty word.

"So," Bill was saying, his hands sifting through the papers in front of him, "Laura Blake. Like I said, she was local, went missing one day in '92, her body was found by the side of the road five days later, pretty much in the state you've described as seeing her." Bill finally came up with something which Dean really hoped was not a picture of the body. Not that he even needed it – he could still see her, just as she was, in his mind's eye. It was only a typed page, though, from which Bill read out the list of Laura's injuries. It was all sounding pretty familiar, until Bill got to—

"She was missing an eye?" Sam repeated, and the fascinated look on his face had been replaced by one of obvious disgust. Bill nodded.

"But," Dean said, "She wasn't. Not when we saw her. She still had ... you know, both."

Bill cocked his head in thought. "You said she looked worse the second night than she did the first, right?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, definitely."

"Well then I'm guessing that's how the cycle goes – each night she looks a little worse. If you saw her again tonight, she'd be missing an eye, and more besides, I'd bet."

There was a silence. Dean could hear birds singing obliviously outside.

"So, her, like, 'cycle' or whatever," Sam said, the edge of curiosity audible again in his voice. "How come it's three days like that? Didn't you say she was missing for five?" Dean thought he could guess why, actually, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

Bill grimaced. "Autopsy found the cause of death to be heart failure. But the pathologist said, judging by the time of death and the state of Laura's injuries, she'd probably been kept somewhere and tortured for at least three days before it happened."

More silence. Sam ducked his head and swallowed hard a couple times. Then he said, "Somewhere like a motel room?"

Bill nodded again. "Seems likely."

"But wait," Dean said, "The papers and the police reports all say they don't know what happened to her – none of them even mention the motel."

"Well, see," Bill said, "The pathologist _hypothesised_ that she'd been held somewhere, but no one ever quite figured out where. They weren't able to track her movements on the day she went missing; no one could say what her plans had been, if she'd been meeting anybody. They asked around motels same as they asked around everywhere else, but nothing came up."

"But surely the owner of this place must have seen something?" said Dean, "Or _found_ something, when they went in the room afterwards?"

Bill shook his head. "If they did, they didn't report it."

Dean felt sick. He could taste the cheap coffee they'd all been drinking sitting at the back of his throat, bitter and stale.

"And they never caught whoever did it?" Sam said.

Bill leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. "They brought her boyfriend in for questioning," he said, "a couple of other guys she'd dated in the past. None of it held water. After that, nothing; all the leads started and ended with the body."

"And that's why she's ... still with us?" Sam asked.

Bill nodded. "Possibly that has something to do with it, yeah. She might be sticking around until her killer is caught. Could just be the manner of her death, though. Someone dies from that kind of violence, they don't tend to go peacefully into the light."

"So she's just ... trapped here? She can't leave? She has to keep reliving her own death over and over?" Dean hardly recognised his own voice when he spoke.

"That's about the size of it," said Bill, softly.

Dean got up from the table and walked out the door, shutting it behind him. He sat on the kerb for a minute and breathed deep to stave off the nausea, let the sun beat down on his neck. The birds were still singing.

He went back inside.

Sam looked at him with concern when he sat down at the table again. Dean tried to give him some kind of reassuring smile, but he wasn't sure how it looked because Sam's frown only got deeper. Dean turned to Bill instead.

"So, what do we do next?"

"Well, now we wait till after dark, then we head to the cemetery."

Dean had a serious sinking feeling about where this was going. He swallowed and said, "What happens there?"

"We dig up whatever's left of Laura Blake's body, salt it and burn it." Bill's voice was totally matter-of-fact, not a hint of revulsion or shame at the idea of what basically amounted to grave desecration. Dean could only imagine what other things Bill's 'job' entailed, if digging up graves had become commonplace.

"Right," Dean said, "And that's what you'd normally do, with this kind of thing?" He'd been going for calm and measured, but he was pretty sure what came out was just the opposite.

Bill started shuffling his papers into some semblance of order, sliding them back into the battered leather briefcase he'd pulled them out of. "Spirit like this," he said, "First concern is always finding the remains. Get rid of the physical body, spirit should usually follow."

Next to him, Sam was nodding. "Yeah, that makes sense," he said, which it did, in a way, but that didn't help much with the tight knot of dread Dean could feel forming in the pit of his stomach.

++

The cemetery was on the other side of town, so as soon as it was dark, Bill told the two of them to follow on behind his truck. They drove in silence, and Dean stared out the window at the dark houses and trees that passed by like spectres.

They reached the place a little after eleven, and Bill came and told them to wait by the car while he checked that the coast was clear.

Dean leant against the side of the car and stared fixedly at the grass growing out of the cracks in the pavement. Sam stood next to him; bumped their shoulders together and said, "Hey, you good?"

Dean surprised himself by saying, "What are we doing here, Sam?"

Sam blinked owlishly at him, like the answer was obvious. "We're helping out the guy who just saved both our lives?"

"Yeah, helping him to dig up and burn the remains of some girl we don't even know."

Sam raised both eyebrows at Dean. "You'd feel better if she was an old family friend?" he said, and Dean was so not in the mood for joking right now.

"Sam."

Sam sighed, dug his hands into his pockets. "If Bill says that's the only way to do it, then—"

"It doesn't make it any less jacked, Sammy."

Sam looked down at his shoes for a minute, the laces Dean had helped him learn to tie when Sam was seven. Then he shrugged and said, "I guess not."

"And what, you're just okay with that?" Because Dean wasn't; Dean was freaked, and none of this was okay, and he just—he needed not to be the only one.

But Sam's eyes narrowed and he said, "Dean, we told this guy that we'd help him out, okay? I want to do that. And if this is going to help that girl stop reliving her own death over and over again then yeah, I want to do that too." Sam frowned, his lips thin and white. "Don't you?" he asked, and that just wasn't fair, because it wasn't as if Dean _liked_ knowing there was a girl who was stuck in a never-ending cycle of suffering and death, anymore than Sam did.

"Sam, that's not—" There was a pronounced cough from over by the truck and when they turned their heads, Bill was standing there, looking them both over with a glint of uncertainty in his eyes.

"You boys alright?" he said. Dean looked down at the pavement and didn't say anything. Sam didn't either, and the silence dragged on for what felt like an interminable number of seconds. Eventually, Bill spoke again. "You know, I ain't asking you to do anything you don't want to. Say the word and I'll finish this thing myself; wouldn't be anything more than I expected when I got into town."

It was tempting, Dean had to admit, but Sam's expression was fixed and stubborn and said that if Dean left, he might not follow. It wouldn't be the first time.

Dean straightened up and looked Bill in the eye. "No, we're fine," he said.

Bill looked at them both for another few seconds, nodded once. "Alright then, let's get on with it."

There were shovels and flashlights in the back of Bill's truck—you know, as well as all the weapons and religious paraphernalia—and he handed one of each to Dean and Sam, then took for himself one of the shotguns and a heavy-looking bag made of burlap, as well as a more standard canvas backpack. The walk through the cemetery was nothing less than extremely creepy, and if Sam's hand brushed a little too often against Dean's, then Dean couldn't say he really minded.

Laura's grave was hard to find in amongst all the others in the dark and it was gone midnight by the time Bill was sure they had the right one. Even then, Dean felt uneasy with what they were about to do.

Bill opened up the burlap sack he'd brought with him and handed it to Sam. Sam's brow furrowed in confusion when he saw what was in it. "Salt?" he said.

"Pour a circle of it around the grave and the headstone," said Bill, "Make sure it goes all the way around in a solid line – no breaks or gaps, okay?"

Sam nodded dumbly and started doing what Bill had requested, but when he was about halfway round the grave site, he asked, "What's this for?"

Bill was busy marking out lines on the turf with one of the shovels, and he gestured at Dean to pick up the other. He didn't look up from what he was doing, and when he answered Sam's question it was almost like an afterthought.

"Some spirits ain't too pleased about people digging around in their final resting place," was all he said.

Dean bit back a remark about the spirits maybe having a point and said, "You mean she might turn up here and try to stop us?"

Bill shrugged. "Maybe. Salt should keep her out if she does. But it's not likely – her spirit seems pretty strongly linked to the motel, she probably can't leave. Still, it's always good to be prepared."

Once again, Bill sounded totally un-phased by all of this, like taking into consideration the potential movements of angry ghosts was all par for the course. In his line of work, Dean supposed, it probably was. He couldn't decide if the thought reassured him or made him more nervous than anything else.

The grave digging itself was a long, slow job that stopped being especially creepy about the same time it became mind-numbingly boring, and Dean's muscles started to ache from the unfamiliar use they were being put to. They'd only brought two shovels, so he and Sam alternated digging with standing at the lip of the grave holding one of the flashlights and watching for any unexpected company, ghostly or otherwise. Bill, however, dug tirelessly; shifting earth like air, barely breaking a sweat.

They hit something solid when Dean's watch read a quarter after three and he'd started to wonder if they would even be able to finish this by sun-up. He was just about to ask what happened now when Bill took up his shovel and smashed it down unceremoniously against the rotting wood of the coffin which Dean only now realised he was standing on.

He pulled himself up and out of the grave and sat next to Sam, who was still holding a flashlight in white-knuckled hands. They watched as Bill wrenched open the head of the coffin and shone his own light inside. Dean caught a glimpse of frayed white satin and a wisp of hair, but categorically refused to look any closer. The beam from Sam's flashlight wobbled a little.

Bill stood up again and started sweeping the remaining dirt off the lid of the coffin. "She's in there," he said.

"You thought she might not be?" Dean said, slightly hysterically, because ghosts were one thing but zombies? Quite another.

Bill shrugged, grabbing the crowbar that was lying on the ground next to the leftover salt and Dean's shovel, and said, "Like I said, never hurts to be prepared." With that, he wrenched the lid of the coffin open, and this time Dean wasn't able to look anywhere else.

There wasn't much left of her: just bones, really, and the wiry remains of hair that Dean knew was one of the last things to go. There was jewellery—tarnished silver and gold on what remained of her fingers and round her neck—but other than that, just the sad remains of a girl long dead. It was simultaneously the worst thing Dean had ever seen and nothing like as bad as he was expecting.

Bill pulled himself up out of the ground and dusted the dirt off of his hands. Then he gestured towards the half-full bag of salt and said, "Hand me that, would you?"

Sam did, and they watched again as Bill sprinkled some of what was left in the bag over the coffin and its contents. He took a container of lighter fluid out of the backpack and did the same with that. Then he patted down all the pockets on his clothes, discarded jacket included, until he came up with a book of matches.

Bill tore a couple of matches off the strip and started striking them against the back of the book. They crackled and flared on the third attempt, and then, with a flick of Bill's wrist, what was left of Laura Blake went up in a rush of flame and acrid smoke.

++

They got back to the motel before sunrise, but the birds had started to sing already and the horizon glowed faintly with the first light of dawn.

Bill was already out of his truck and standing impatiently at the motel room door by the time Dean and Sam got there after him.

"One of you boys got the key?" he said. Sam nodded and pulled the key chain out of his back pocket.

When they unlocked the door, the room was quiet and empty before them. The bed had been made at some point, but their stuff was in disarray around the room as they'd left it. The air was warm and stale, not a breath of cold air to speak of, and there was nothing out of the ordinary that Dean could see. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"She's gone," he said.

Bill didn't look convinced, though, and when Sam went to take a step forward into the room, Bill put an arm out to stop him.

"Better let me go first, kid," he said firmly, but without looking at Sam, his eyes still fixed on the empty room.

It was the "kid" that did it, Dean thought. Sam's face hardened into the same expression of dislike he got every time he took something Dad said the wrong way, and he pushed Bill's arm aside hard enough to take him by surprise.

"Come on," Sam said, "It's over, right?" He got two steps inside before something knocked him off his feet and sent him flying across the room and into the dresser.

Dean had just enough time to see his brother's face, wet with blood, before the door slammed shut and hid it from view.

++

When they were kids, Dean had jumped off the garage roof when Sam dared him to, then stood in the driveway waiting smugly for Sam to follow. Dean was never sure of exactly what had happened, but the next thing he'd known, Sam had been laid out on the pavement and he didn't answer when Dean said his name.

He'd only been out for a few seconds, at most, but they'd been the longest of Dean's life and he'd never been able to forget them.

They were eclipsed, now, by the total helplessness Dean felt on the wrong side of a locked motel room door while on the other, Sam was trapped, possibly unconscious and at the mercy of a homicidal ghost. Because this was, hands down, no question, the absolute worse situation Dean had ever in his life had the misfortune to become involved in.

It became slightly less catastrophically bad when Sam's voice came through the door—frightened and shrill, but still _his_ —and Dean let himself breathe again.

"Sam," he called out, "Sammy, you okay?" at about the same time as Bill said, "You alright, son?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Sam, his voice muffled slightly by the wood, but still clear and strong. "Bill, she's still in the room," he continued, "I thought you said she'd be gone if we got rid of the bones?"

"Yeah, Sam, I know I did," said Bill, "And we can talk about that later, but first of all we need to get you out of that room, okay?" And that was a fucking _fantastic_ idea, in Dean's view. Judging by the tone of his voice, he was pretty sure Sam felt the same way.

Problem was, Laura seemed to object quite strongly to the plan because no matter how hard Bill and Dean pushed, with Sam pulling as hard as he could on the other side, the door wouldn't budge. After a couple of minutes, Bill called out for Sam to stand back and then, lifting one muddy boot off of the ground he kicked it squarely at the door. Apart from leaving a pretty spectacular scuffmark on the cheap paint, nothing happened. Bill tried again, and again, but the door still didn't shift. He frowned and said, "I hate it when that doesn't work."

"What now?" Dean said, a little desperately. From inside the motel room, he could hear Sam asking what was going on.

Bill shrugged his shoulders heavily, looking more worried than he had since the night they'd first met him, which didn't do anything to assuage Dean's growing sense of panic. "He's going to have to fight her off," Bill said.

Dean's stomach dropped. "How the fuck is he going to do that?" he asked.

Bill moved so that he was pressed up close against the door and said, "Sam, when I came in the other night to get you boys out, I had something in my hands. An iron rod like a poker, you remember?"

"Yeah," said Sam, then, "What the hell, just get me out of here—"

But Bill ignored him, carried on talking. "I dropped it when she knocked me over, it should still be in there. Can you see it?"

There was a pause, and then Sam said, "Yeah, it's over by the dresser."

"Can you get to it? Is she there?"

"N-no. She's gone. I don't know where she went."

"Okay, I want you to go over there and pick up the rod, quick as you can."

"But what if she—"

"Sam, just do it, okay? Trust me. That is the only thing in the room that's gonna be any help."

There was a scuffling noise, the scrape of metal on wood, then another scuffle and the thump of Sam's body against the door again.

"I've got it. Now what?"

"Well, you're gonna use it to fend her off, you hear me?"

"What?" said Sam, in a slightly hysterical voice, at the same time as Dean said, "Will that even work?"

Bill nodded in Dean's direction but continued speaking to the door. "Iron repels ghosts, it should force her to disappear when you swing at her – you remember how I did it before?

There was a pause, then Sam said, "Yeah," but he didn't sound entirely convinced.

"Okay, so, when she comes at you, you're gonna hit her with the iron rod just like that, you understand?"

There was a silence. Dean's heart skipped a beat or two.

"Sam, you understand me?" Bill said again, a little louder.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"Okay, we're right here, Sam. Just keep a hold of that rod, and _don't_ let her come near you, you got it?"

Sam repeated his uncertain assurances in the same kind of wobbly tones he'd had when he was fourteen, and Dean could have gone his whole life without hearing his little brother sound so completely terrified, he really could have.

"Will the iron thing really work?" he said, lowering his voice so that Sam (hopefully) couldn't hear through the door, in case Bill now confessed that he'd been bullshitting and Sam didn't stand a fucking chance.

But Bill just nodded and said, "Yeah, it should," before he squinted at where the sun was sitting a good way above the horizon. Dean hadn't even noticed it rising. "What I don't understand, though, is why she's still here. Would have thought sun-up would see her gone, like it does most others."

Just then, there was a cry from inside the room. Bill snapped his head back to look at the door and said, "Sam? Is she there?"

"Yeah, god, she's right here in front of me, but she's not—she's not _doing_ anything."

Bill shook his head, in frustration or exasperation, Dean wasn't sure which. "Well damn, don't wait for her to start, son, just hit her."

There was a _swoosh_ and a heavy clunk, like Sam had hit the wall at the end of his swing, and then Sam's voice, full of breathless excitement, said, "I did it, she's gone!"

The lines on Bill's face eased just a little, but his voice was still deadly serious when he said, "She won't stay gone, Sam, she'll be back. Stay sharp."

"Okay," said Sam, but he sounded calmer, less rattled than before. Dean couldn't say the same for his own state of mind.

They stood at the door in silence, Bill shooting glances over at the horizon every so often. After a couple of minutes, there was another _swooshthunk_ from inside the room, and Sam calling out, "I got her again, Bill!"

"That's great, kid, keep it up."

Sam did, a couple more times, but then, finally, there came a _swoosh_ that didn't _thunk_ and instead of Sam's delighted exclamations of success, there came no sound at all.

Dean felt his heart stop. "Sam? Sam?" Bill was saying, over and over. Dean's whole body tingled, then went numb. This wasn't—he couldn't—

The silence dragged on. And on.

He didn't realise he was hammering on the door and screaming his brother's name until Bill grabbed him bodily and pulled him away, saying, "Dean, this isn't helping, you have to stay calm and—"

"Fuck you, fuck staying calm—Sam, you fucking answer me already. Sammy?"

"Dean, you're going to get everybody in the motel out here, you hear me? You have to calm down, _listen to me_ —"

Dean wrenched himself free of Bill's grasp, and clenched his fists in Bill's shirt. "No, you fucking listen to _me_ , okay? You go get an axe or a mallet or a fucking battering ram out of that truck of yours, and you get him out of there right now, or I swear to _god_ —"

But then a different, far more familiar voice said his name, and Dean swung round to see Sam propping himself up in the open doorway. There was a trickle of blood on his forehead and the reddened precursor to bruising on his cheek. He looked battered and shaken and he was alive. Wonderfully, gloriously alive.

Dean didn't register moving, just the feel of Sam's body, whole and solid, under his hands. He didn't know what he was saying, just heard the way Sam shushed him and said, "It's okay, Dean, I'm okay." Didn't realise Sam was going to kiss him until he already had.

Dean wasn't sure why it mattered to him that they were doing this in front of Bill, but somehow it did, greatly, and so he pulled away from Sam before the kiss could become anything more than a quick press of lips. He patted his hands over Sam's chest once more and stepped a reasonable distance away. When he could breathe again, he glanced up and noticed that Bill was hovering, close by but hesitant, like he wasn't really sure if it would be okay for him to interrupt.

It was at that moment that the door to the motel lobby opened and a woman whom Dean assumed owned the place came out wearing jeans, flip-flops and a CU Boulder t-shirt faded with wear. The expression on her face was not a happy one.

"What the hell is going on out here?" she said, without preamble. "I've had half a dozen people call me one after the other saying that somebody was out here making a ruckus, all of which was completely unnecessary, by the way, because anybody with ears in about a three-mile radius could hear the noise you people are making." Bill opened his mouth to speak, but the woman just ploughed on regardless, "So if somebody doesn't explain this to me within the next two minutes, I'm calling the cops." She crossed her arms and stood there, waiting. Dean didn't think he could have explained the situation to her if he'd tried, and so he was grateful when Bill took things in hand.

"Absolutely, ma'am," he said, even though she had to be ten to fifteen years younger than him, at the very least. He turned to Dean and said, "Why don't you take Sam down to my room, check he's okay. There should be a first aid kit in the bathroom." Dean nodded and took the key from Bill's hand when he held it out. Ignoring Sam's repeated protestations that he was fine, he pulled his brother along by the sleeve until they were safely inside Bill's motel room, and shut the door behind them with a click.

++

On closer inspection, the wound on Sam's forehead wasn't much more than a graze, and while the bruising was going to end up being pretty impressive (not to mention great fun to explain to their parents when they got home, and _Christ_ Dean hadn't even thought about them yet), there didn't seem to be anything else wrong. Still, Dean made Sam sit on the edge of the bed while he cleaned the blood off of Sam's face, and he tried hard not to think about how much worse it could have been.

Sam, however, appeared to have got over the life-threatening aspect of the situation pretty easily, and was jittery with what Dean could only assume—much to his disbelief—was excitement.

"... and you should've seen her, Dean," Sam was saying, "I mean, seriously, she was so messed up, way worse than she was when we saw her before. She was missing an eye and everything, it was just like Bill said."

"Mmhm," was all the answer Dean could seem to get out. He concentrated on applying antiseptic cream to Sam's forehead.

"And when I hit her, it was like the poker was moving through molasses or something, you know? All slow and heavy. But then she disappeared, into smoke, just like when Bill did it."

Dean made another vaguely affirmative noise and started looking through the first-aid kit for some Tylenol or something; he could feel a headache starting, tight and uncomfortable, behind his eyes. When Sam's voice filtered in again, he was saying, "Man, it was awesome."

Dean swallowed hard and clenched his hands into fists to stop himself from giving Sam a matching bruise on the opposite cheek.

"You stupid fucking idiot," he said, not even bothering to try and disguise the tremor in his voice.

Sam's smile faltered. He looked confused, maybe even a little hurt, which, fuck him. "What? Dean—"

"You could've fucking _died_ , Sammy," Dean said, and despite what his dad had told him when he was a kid, voicing the fear didn't make it any easier to overcome. "Far as I can tell, the only reason you didn't is down to pure dumb luck, so don't fucking tell me how 'awesome' it was standing out there waiting to see if you'd come out alive. Just—don't."

Dean sat down heavily on the bed and put his head in his hands, feeling dizzy and sick and completely drained.

After a few seconds, Sam's hand came to rest on the back of Dean's neck, then there was the soft brush of Sam's lips against his jaw and he felt, rather than heard, the apology Sam murmured into his skin. Dean let his hands fall away and his head tilt sideways so that their foreheads touched. He didn't kiss Sam, because he thought if he started now, he might not be able to stop. He closed his eyes, instead, and just breathed in slowly.

They were still sat like that when Bill came in through the door a while later. Dean couldn't bring himself to shift too far from Sam, but he lifted his head up and started to ask Bill what excuse he'd given the woman about the noise. He fell silent again when he noticed the grim expression on Bill's face, and the way his eyes were fixed entirely on Sam.

"Son," he said, once Sam's eyes had reluctantly come up to meet his. "I'm hoping our situation here is gonna be a one-time only kind of thing, if you know what I mean, but just in case – I tell you to do something, you do it, you hear me? I let you boys come with me on this on the condition you did exactly what I asked. I ain't gonna let your deaths end up on my conscience just because you're too full of yourself to take orders. I make myself clear?"

There was a long, uncomfortable pause, and then Dean couldn't believe it when Sam nodded his head, almost meekly, and said, "Yeah. I'm sorry."

Apologising wasn't something Sam was particularly well-versed in, nor was admitting when he'd been wrong. Dean couldn't remember the last time Sam had offered an apology to their parents for any of the stupid things he'd gotten up to in high school, or after any of the pointless, vicious fights he'd had with Dad. The simplicity of this one, then, was almost maddening. True, there'd been a ghost involved, not to mention a near-death experience, but the fact that Sam could apparently respect Bill in a way he couldn't even afford his own father was enough to make Dean grit his teeth in frustration. It wasn't the time to pick a fight, though, and so he let it go, for now.

Bill was nodding, and his expression smoothed out from one of anger into something more sympathetic. "You okay?" he said, "She didn't work you over too bad?"

Sam nodded and replied, "No, I'm good." Dean noticed that nobody was asking whether _he_ was okay, but that was fine. He'd just have his mental breakdown quietly and no one would be any the wiser.

Bill sat down on the chair opposite the bed and said, "So, how about you let us know what went on in there, exactly."

Sam breathed in shakily and brushed the hair out of his eyes. It felt back down straight away, like always, and Dean clamped down again on the urge to kiss him.

"I don't know," Sam said, "I hit her a couple of times, like you told me to, and she disappeared into smoke, like before?" Sam's voice hitched up at the end, as if it were a question, and he waited for Bill to nod reassuringly before he carried on. "But then, the last time, I went to swing at her and she just ... vanished. No smoke or anything. She just wasn't there anymore."

"And you couldn't have let us know, right away?" Dean said, irritiably, "God, Sam, I thought you were—"

Sam reached out to lay a hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean let him, because when Sam was touching him, it felt less like he could fly apart at any minute. "I know, I know," said Sam, "I'm sorry, okay? But there was this noise, this ... screaming in my head and I couldn't hear anything or, like, think straight for a few seconds after she'd gone." Sam shrugged. "Anyway, as soon as it was over, I tried the door again and it opened, easy as that." He looked over at Bill, who was checking his watch and looking thoughtful. "I don't know what I did to make her go away," Sam finished.

Bill shook his head and said, more to himself than either of them, "Must be time constraints."

"What must?" said Dean, impatient to understand now that the fear and relief were starting to wear off.

Bill shrugged. "Well, I figured at first that sunrise would be what made her disappear," he said, and Dean nodded in remembrance of what Bill had said earlier, "But that wasn't it. So there must be some significance to the time at which she _did_ disappear."

"Like what?" Sam asked.

Bill looked thoughtful. "Not sure. Might be the exact time she died; that seems the most likely option."

Just like that, the nausea was back. Dean swallowed it down and stared at the floor. Nobody else said anything, and so when Dean was sure he wasn't going to throw up anymore, he said, "So, seeing as Laura's still hanging around: what next?"

"We check the room," Bill replied, "If burning the remains didn't work, chances are there's something left behind that's keeping her there."

"Something like what?" Sam asked, warily.

Bill shrugged. "Won't know 'til we look," he said, but Dean felt pretty damn certain that it wasn't going to be anything pleasant.

As they got ready to make their way out the door, Dean remembered what he'd been going to ask earlier, and said, "Hey, Bill. What _did_ you tell that woman earlier?"

Bill grinned and clapped Sam on the shoulder. "Told her my nephew Sam, here, is asthmatic, had an attack while he was locked in the room without his inhaler. His buddy Dean got a bit frantic when he realised Sam didn't have his medicine, wanted to bust in there, but fortunately Sam managed to open the door before he could. We're very sorry for any inconvenience, but hope the other guests will understand the stress of the situation."

"And she bought that?" Sam said, smiling.

Bill's cheerful tone and expression remained firmly in place when he said, "Not even a little."

The smile dropped off of Sam's face. "So, what did you tell her instead?"

"The truth."

Dean let out a laugh that died quickly when he realised that Bill wasn't joking. "What, seriously?" he said.

"Yep," Bill replied, "There's just some people you can't fool, no matter what. Besides, I believe in being honest wherever possible. Someone asks me a direct question, I ain't gonna lie."

"So you told her the truth?"

"Yep."

"How did she take it?"

"She just said it was high time somebody did something about the 'unpleasantness' in the room and asked us to keep it down."

There was a pause, then Dean said, "That's it?"

Bill shrugged. "It's not everybody that's blind to what's right in front of them."

Dean shook his head in disbelief, but Sam said, "Wait, so, did you tell her the truth or the whole truth?"

Bill looked amused. "What, you think I tell _that_ to just anyone?" he said, then, "Don't worry; you boys can still feel special."

Dean had never been less inclined to feel special in his life.

++

The door to the room was still wide open when they got there, and inside everything was quiet and still. Nonetheless, Sam very pointedly stood back to let Bill step inside first. In one hand he was holding another iron poker (apparently he had more than one at his disposal), in the other a strange device that looked a little like the old radio Dean's grandfather still insisted on using back home. It made a soft whirring noise when Bill turned it on.

"What is that?" Dean asked.

"EMF detector," Bill said, absently, still fixing his gaze on the dials that twitched back and forth on the thing. "It measures levels of electromagnetic frequency to indicate spirit activity."

 _Of course it does_ , thought Dean, while Sam nodded along like he had a clue.

After a few moments, Bill appeared satisfied and turned the device off again. "Okay," he said, "I'm pretty sure we're safe during the day, but let's make this quick, just in case, alright?"

They searched the room: pulling out the drawers in the dresser, checking under the bed, looking behind picture frames and prying up the edges of the carpet.

Dean found what they were looking for beneath a loose floorboard in the far left corner of the room; right at the spot where he'd seen Laura's ghost the first night. It was a bundle, wrapped up in faded blue denim and tied together with green wool. When Bill cut through the knots with his pocket knife, inside was a clump of dark hair, four or five teeth, and a bunch of what looked like dried leaves, from which the bittersweet smell that permeated the room clearly emanated. It filled Dean's nostrils, pungent and cloying.

They laid the collected items out on the floor and looked at them.

"What the hell?" Sam said, into the silence.

Bill frowned and shook his head. "Ain't sure I know," he said, and Dean figured that for a pretty bad sign.

"Is this like a serial killer thing?" Sam said, randomly. When Bill raised a quizzical eyebrow at him, he went on: "You know, like taking something from the victim to remind them of the killing. A memento or whatever?"

"Well wouldn't he want to take it with him, then?" said Dean.

Sam shook his head. "Not necessarily. He might decide to leave it where he knew he could come back to it later, if he wanted. Some serial killers like knowing there's evidence of their crime hidden away somewhere, that only they know about."

Bill just stared, like maybe he was worried Sam spoke from personal experience.

Sam shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. "There was this documentary on TV the other night."

"You were watching that?" Dean said, because to his recollection, he'd done a pretty good job of holding Sam's attention that particular evening.

Sam smirked at him. "I can multitask," he said. Dean didn't blush, because this was so not the time.

"Anyway," said Bill, pointedly. "It could be something like that, sure. This is certainly what's keeping Laura's spirit here, anyway. The teeth and the hair would count as remains, the clothes, too, if they're her's, which I assume that they are." He frowned at the collection laid out in front of them, then picked up the brittle bunch of brown leaves. It crackled as he rolled it in between his fingers. "Not so sure about this, though," he said, pulling a face as he raised the leaves to his nose to sniff.

"Do you know what it is?" asked Sam.

"Herbs," said Bill, "Myrrh, if I'm not mistaken, and something else. Wormwood, possibly." He dropped the bunch of leaves back onto the cloth, dusting specks of black off of his fingers the same way he'd dusted grave-dirt from his hands earlier, at the cemetery.

Sam frowned. "Well, that's a little weird, right?"

Dean thought that was stating the freaking obvious, and said: "I think that 'weird' pretty much comes with the territory when you're a serial killer, Sammy."

But Bill nodded and said, "No, Sam's right, it is strange. The rest of this stuff clearly belonged to Laura, but these …" His brow furrowed as he trailed off, and he touched his fingers to the herbs again.

Sam leaned forward, with an almost eager look in his eyes. As with a lot of what had happened the past couple of days, he looked more fascinated than freaked. "So, what did he include them for?" he said, "I mean, myrrh and wormwood – they're both herbs people associate with death, right? Is it meant to be symbolic, adding them to the rest of the stuff, do you think?"

Bill raised his eyebrows in what Dean took to be surprise at Sam's apparent knowledge of freaky herbs, but all he said in response was, "Could be."

Sam frowned. "But you don't think so, right?"

Bill smiled wryly and shook his head. "Nothing gets past you, does it, Sam?"

Sam lifted his chin defiantly, but Bill's tone wasn't teasing or condescending; he sounded impressed, if anything.

"Anyway," Bill went on, "It could just be symbolic. Could be something else entirely."

"Meaning what?" Dean asked.

"Meaning we need to burn this, like we did the rest of her," said Bill, matter-of-factly. He gathered the contents of the bundle back up into the square of cloth it'd been wrapped in and tied it back together as it had been before. "Grab that trashcan and bring it outside with you," he said as he stood up.

Dean was a little taken aback; he looked to Sam, who seemed equally so, and then scrambled up off the floor and said, "What? No, wait a minute."

Bill, who'd started walking towards the door, turned back and looked at them both with raised eyebrows. "What for?"

"Are you sure burning it is the right thing to do?" Dean said, "I mean, isn't this evidence? Shouldn't we hand it over the police?"

Bill raised one eyebrow. "And tell them what, exactly?" he said, "That we've somehow uncovered the location of Laura Blake's murder, despite the fact that an entire police investigation was unable to do so back when it actually happened? And then hand over evidence like this," he held up the tightly wrapped bundle, "With our assurances that it does, indeed, belong to the victim? How on earth could we know any of that without being involved, Dean? We'd be suspects for sure."

"Couldn't we drop it off anonymously at the police station?" asked Sam, "Leave a note or something?"

Bill sighed and shook his head, "Keeping this thing is not an option, for anybody. We have to burn it."

"But why?"

"Because _this_ ," Bill held the bundle up again for emphasis, "Is the reason Laura Blake can't leave this room. _This_ is what's keeping her tied to her own death and forcing her to spend each and every night reliving it. If we don't burn this, we're just condemning her to more of the same, and maybe some other folks to a similar end, if she gets the chance." He met Sam's eyes first, then Dean's, and said, "Either of you really want that to happen?"

Dean swallowed hard and said, "No," a fraction of a second before Sam did.

Bill looked at them both for another couple of moments before he nodded. "Then bring that outside with you," he said, gesturing towards the trashcan again, "And let's send the poor girl on her way."

Dean hesitated a few seconds—instincts telling him this was all wrong, that the police should have the evidence, no matter what—but then he remembered the look on Laura's face, the torment and wearied rage he'd seen there, and he knew Bill was right. He grabbed up the trashcan from the corner of the room and followed Bill out the door, Sam trailing after them both.

They went round the side of the building, where people wouldn't be able to see them, and Bill put the bundle into the metal trashcan along with a handful of salt and some lighter fluid. Then he held out the book of matches he'd used before, at the cemetery, and said, "One of you boys want to do the honour?"

Dean was surprised when the voice saying, "I'll do it," turned out to be his own, but when he struck a match against the back of the book and watched the flames jump up from the sodden mess in the trashcan, something about the action felt natural and right.

He tried not to think too hard about how much that thought scared him.

++

They spread the ashes out on the scrap of grass that ran alongside the parking lot and went back to the room. Like before, it was quiet and empty, no sign of anything strange, and even the scent of the herbs was starting to fade. Dean figured it was just another dingy motel room, now.

Still, as the last couple days had proved, appearances could be deceiving.

"Is she really gone this time?" he asked Bill.

Bill was over in the corner, replacing the loose floorboard and pulling the carpet back over it. He nodded. "Think so."

Sam frowned. "Is there any way to be sure?"

"Only staying here another night and checking she doesn't make an appearance."

"Should we—" Sam started, but before he could finish what Dean assumed was going to be an offer to stay too, Bill cut in.

"There's really no need for you boys to hang around any longer," he said.

"But what if you need our help again?"

Dean wasn't entirely sure Bill had, at any point during this whole escapade, actually _needed_ their help, but he also wasn't sure Sam saw it that way.

Bill shook his head firmly, however, and said, "I ain't budging this time, son."

Sam still looked unhappy. "But I—" he tried again.

Bill interrupted him again. "Believe me, Sam, it's over. There's no use in you staying, and it'll make me feel better to know you're safely on your way home."

Dean spoke before Sam could get another word in. "And you really think she's gone?"

Bill nodded. "I do, yes."

Dean breathed out slowly, relief loosening the knot of tension that had been lodged in his chest since this whole thing had started. Sam, however, still had a look of dissatisfaction and annoyance on his face. Bill noticed it, too, and said, "Sam? There a problem?"

Sam stopped glaring angrily out the open door and glared at Bill instead. "You're really just going to leave it like this?" he said.

"Like what?" Bill asked, and the confusion on his face looked genuine, this time.

"Like without even finding out who _did_ this," Sam said.

Bill sighed and rubbed at his temple, with a look of exasperation that Dean had seen on his parents' faces a hundred times before. "Sam, that ain't my job," he said. "I've been trying to make that clear to you. If you're really concerned, I can call the police on my way out of town, leave an anonymous tip about the motel room. Never know, maybe they'll find something, forensics these days are that advanced," Bill looked rueful, "But it's not likely, and that's not something I have any power to change. I'm sorry, son."

Dean understood, even if the hopelessness of the situation made his stomach heave, and he nodded at Bill in acquiescence; however, the look on Sam's face said that something was still bothering him. Sure enough, it was only a couple of seconds before he said: "What about the rest of it?"

Bill furrowed his brow in bewilderment. "The rest of it?"

"The herbs," Sam said, shortly.

The confusion on Bill's face suddenly looked a lot less genuine, like he was only maintaining the expression to avoid a conversation he really didn't want to be having. "What about them?" he said, cautiously.

"Before, you seemed to think they weren't just there for the sake of it. That there was something more to it."

Bill appeared to give a moment's thought to his answer; then he nodded slowly and said, "Yes, I did. I do."

"And?"

"Sam, just drop it, would you?" Dean said. God, he just wanted this to be over. He wanted Sam to stop dragging them deeper into this godforsaken mess.

But Bill seemed resigned to full disclosure, now, and he said, "It's still possible that the bundle ain't nothing more than some sick bastard's memento, like you were sayin', Sam. But if you ask me, the herbs suggest a ritual of some kind."

There was a pause. "You mean like witchcraft or something?" Dean eventually asked.

"Or something," Bill replied. "Necromancy, most like."

"What's the difference?" Sam asked, his tone genuinely interested, but Bill looked at him darkly and said, "Trust me, boy, you don't wanna know."

Sam looked annoyed at Bill's rebuttal, but he only said, "So, what was he trying to do? What kind of ritual was it?"

Bill sighed and said, reluctantly, "I'm no expert, but I'd guess a binding spell of some kind." He gave them both a meaningful look; Dean felt like he was missing something.

"Binding?" he asked, but Sam's face had lost its inquisitive expression and twisted up instead in disbelief.

"So, you mean he did it deliberately?" he said. "You're saying he didn't just kill her, he trapped her spirit here? Made sure she couldn't leave after she'd died?"

Bill didn't answer, but the way he looked at them both was enough.

"And you don't feel like _that's_ something you need to look into?" Sam went on, forcefully. "Necromancy or whatever – that’s supernatural, right? Isn't that your job?"

"What, you think you know something about something now, kid?" Bill said, and for what was possibly the first time since they'd met him, there was nothing pleasant or accommodating about his tone. "I've been doing this since before you were born, so don't try and tell me I'm doing it wrong."

"I wasn't—" Sam started, but Bill wouldn't let him finish, the last of his former patience seemingly gone.

"I got a wife and daughter who don't sleep till I'm back home, and that's more important than anything," he said. "When a job's done—and I say this one's done—I leave it behind and I take myself home again. I suggest you boys do the same."

With that, Bill grabbed up the poker that was still lying on the carpet, and stalked out the door.

They stood next to each other in silence, until Dean found himself saying, "Way to go, Sammy."

"What?" said Sam indignantly, "I just think we shouldn't leave until this is finished."

"We don't know that it's _not_ ," Dean said.

Sam fell silent. He went over to the dresser and started collecting up his clothes, shoving them back into one of their duffel bags.

Dean tried again. "Bill's going home, Sam. We should too."

"Whatever," Sam said, and carried on packing. Dean sighed and went into the bathroom to collect their wash stuff.

When they'd got everything together, they stood at the door and looked back into the empty room. A breath of air crept past them from outside, brushing over Dean's skin and making him shiver.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

++

In the parking lot, Bill was sitting sideways in the front of his truck with the door open, legs sticking out over the edge. He jumped down when he saw them come out of the room and smiled with uncertainty.

"Hey, boys," he said. Dean said "hey" in return, Sam said nothing. Bill scratched at the back of his neck nervously.

"Look, Sam," he said, "I'm sorry I was short with you before. I know how it is, feeling like you've left something unfinished. And I agree, there could be something more here that needs chasing up," Sam opened his mouth to speak, but Bill just carried on talking, "But that's just not something I do, okay? I do my job and then I go home again, I don't follow up leads I can't be sure I'll track down." He paused, licked his lips thoughtfully. "But there are plenty of other people who will. I'll make sure I pass on what we found to some friends of mine, and I guarantee you that one of them will be able to figure this out, if there really is anything. This won't get forgotten, Sam, you have my word, but there's honestly no need for you to stick around any longer."

There was a pause, in which Dean wondered whether Sam was going to argue some more, but then he just nodded, tersely, and said, "Okay."

Bill's smile became one of relief. "Great," he said. "Now let's get you boys packed up."

Bill helped them put their stuff in the car and when they were all done, he handed them a scrap of paper with a name and a number on it. "You ever need anything, you call me, y'hear?" Bill said, "Though I trust you won't take offence if I say I hope I never have to hear from you again."

Dean laughed a little, put the piece of paper in his pocket. "We won't, long as you don't take any at us expressing a similar sentiment," he said. Bill laughed along with him, at that. Then he held out his hand.

"It's been a pleasure, boys," he said, "I only wish it could have been under better circumstances."

Dean smiled and took Bill's outstretched hand. "Yeah, me too," he said.

Bill hesitated a second before he held his hand out to Sam, who still looked unhappy with the situation, but then the frown on his face seemed to lessen and he took Bill's hand in one of his own gigantic paws.

"Thanks, Bill," he said, "For everything."

Bill smiled at them both. "You boys drive safe," he said.

As Sam pulled the car out of the parking lot and headed left, Dean watched Bill's figure get smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror until eventually he disappeared from view.

They drove in silence, nothing on the radio and Sam's eyes fixed in front, Dean staring out of the window at the passing scenery.

It was late morning by now, and the sun was high, but to Dean it seemed that the road signs and trees that flew by cast long, dark shadows that twisted and stretched out their thin, grasping fingers toward him.

Dean shifted his gaze and looked over at his brother instead. Sam was still looking at the road in front of him, hair falling across his eyes, shaggy and unkempt. Their mother was going to want to cut it as soon as they got back home. That was going to be a fun argument.

After a couple of minutes, Sam glanced over at Dean and said, "Stop staring at me, man," but he sounded more affectionate than annoyed, and so Dean carried on as he was.

The next time he looked out of the window, the shadows had shrunk, slinking away from the fierce midday sun.

++

They made their last stop in Topeka – totally unnecessarily, Dean might add, with only thirty miles 'til Lawrence and a little daylight still left to them; not to mention the worried tones of their mother's voice when Dean had called and made their excuses for why they weren't back yet.

But Sam had asked, quiet and resigned, if they could stop for the night, and Dean couldn't say anything except, "Yeah, okay, Sammy. We can do that."

The motel clerk gave them a single, no problem, and Dean resisted the urge to check that "nobody's ever died in there, right?" They looked it over, when they got in, though Dean wasn't sure what they thought they were going to find. There was a bad paint job and ugly carpeting and a shower that sputtered, and nothing untoward about any of it. Of course, that was what they'd thought in Boulder, too, and look where that had gotten them, but short of pulling the place apart all they could really do was settle in and hope for the best.

They brushed their teeth side by side in the tiny bathroom, bumping heads as they tried to spit into the sink simultaneously, and then got into bed, though it wasn't especially late; they could still hear the muffled sounds of activity from the occupied room above them, and outside it wasn't even fully dark yet. Through a gap in the curtains came faint traces of the evening's dying light, limning the room with a dim purple glow.

The shadows grew deeper as they lay side by side, and Dean thought maybe the night might simply end up involving some of the sleep they'd missed over the past couple of days. But just as Dean started to let himself drift off, he felt the touch of Sam's hand ghosting over his cheek and blinked his eyes open again. The room was dark, now, and Sam's face was indistinct, but Dean could still see the question in Sam's eyes, and knew what his answer would be: what it would always be.

He tilted his head and pressed kisses against Sam's palm and his wrist, then on up the long stretch of Sam's arm, taking his time, until he reached the juncture between shoulder and neck. He stopped there a moment, lips barely grazing Sam's skin, listening to the way Sam's breath came out ragged and quick. The room was quieter now: the people upstairs had turned the TV off and gone to bed, it appeared, and even the hum of traffic from the road outside had ceased for a while. Now, in the silence, all Dean could hear was the erratic disharmony of Sam's breathing and his own.

Eventually, Sam made a disgruntled sound and shifted on the bed, nosing at the side of Dean's face impatiently.

When they kissed, it was long and slow and deep – the kind of kissing that made Dean feel light and fuzzy around the edges. Only when Sam let him come up for air, briefly, did Dean realise that he was on his back, Sam's body pushing him down into the mattress. It was awkward, a little uncomfortable the way their bodies didn't quite line up, and without thinking, Dean wriggled his legs out from under his brother's body so that his knees bracketed Sam's hips, instead.

Sam gasped into Dean's mouth at the new way they fit together, and his hands moved tentatively down to rest on Dean's thighs, the weight of them causing Dean's legs to fall a little wider apart. They kissed again, harder, more intensely than before, and Dean was acutely aware of Sam's fingers, stroking the insides of his thighs and moving up underneath his boxers. The sensation went straight to his head and to his dick, making him dizzy and hard, and he could feel the situation moving inexorably towards something which, up until now, he'd been careful to avoid.

He still wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, some tiny part of his brain screaming at him to stop this before it went too far, but then Sam moved his hands again, one thumb brushing up behind Dean's balls, and Dean knew it was hopeless. Didn't matter that Sam hadn't asked, that maybe he wasn't even going to; Dean was going to let it happen anyway, purely because he wanted it to.

"Yeah," he said, "Yeah, Sammy," and rolled his hips up in what he hoped would be invitation enough.

Sam pulled back and stared at him, looking so surprised that Dean wondered momentarily if he'd somehow read this wrong, but then Sam licked his lips nervously and said, "Are you sure?"

Dean raised one eyebrow. "We really going to go all after-school special on this one? What, you wanna exchange promise rings first or something, is that it?"

Sam shook his head, but he still looked uncertain. "No, I'm just saying, you know, that—that _I_ don't have to—I mean, you can, instead, if you want," he stammered, and when he made as if to roll over onto his back, Dean realised what he was getting at.

It wasn't something Dean could consider, right now – one step too far over the line they were already about to cross – and he grabbed at Sam's shoulders to stop him from moving any further away. "No," he said, a little too urgently, so that Sam looked almost hurt at the rebuttal, and then: "Want you to do it," because that was true, at least, and Sam didn't need to know the rest.

"I want you to fuck me," Dean went on, breathlessly, and it was easier to say than it probably should have been, the words tripping off the end of his tongue, simple and light.

Sam shivered in Dean's arms, and the way he said, "God, yeah," made Dean's skin prickle in anticipation.

It turned out Sam had the necessary supplies in his duffel, which was lucky because Dean wasn't sure what they would have done otherwise. Actually, he was almost certain that luck had nothing to do with it, and he couldn't help but ask Sam exactly how long he'd been carrying this stuff around in the hopes of using it.

Sam shrugged with seeming nonchalance, but he wouldn't look Dean in the eye when he answered: "Since we left home." Dean had the sudden image of Sam packing this stuff right under their mother's nose, while she fussed and fretted and made sure that both of them had included enough clean underwear for the trip. It wasn't a thought that Dean needed to be having right now, and so he pushed it aside and asked a different question.

"How do you want me?" he said, and as soon as the words were out he could feel his face heat with embarrassment at how ridiculous he sounded.

Sam just smiled. "It's easier if you're on your front," he said, and the certainty in his voice sent a sudden wave of jealous distaste rushing through Dean's body. Sam seemed to notice, because he shook his head and said, "I've never done this before, I just … I did some research."

Dean let his body relax again and tried not to laugh out loud with relief. He leaned in to nip at Sam's mouth, instead, and murmured, "You're such a geek," against his lips. Sam did laugh, then, albeit a little nervously, and hooked his thumb in the waistband of Dean's boxers, rubbing along the skin of Dean's belly.

"So, you gonna?" he asked.

Dean frowned. "Am I gonna what?"

"Roll over for me," Sam replied, and the note of smug self-assurance in his voice would have been annoying if it weren't for the teasing grin plastered all over his face.

"Brat." Dean grinned back at him, but made sure to dig his fingers a little harder into Sam's arm at the same time.

Sam just laughed again, but then his expression sobered and he said, "Seriously, Dean, it'll be better for you if you roll over—"

"Can't we just stay like this?" Dean asked, abruptly, because suddenly, being able to look at Sam while they did this felt terribly important.

He wasn't going to say as much to Sam, of course, but Sam seemed to get it anyway, because he just nodded and said, "Yeah, if you want. It'll hurt more, though."

Dean shook his head. "I don't care."

"Okay," Sam said, and kissed him.

Sam might have insisted that this was all new to him, but it seemed clear to Dean that he'd done the first part before, at least. His long, slick fingers felt careful and sure as they pushed inside and started stretching Dean out, and while the sensation was uncomfortable, at first, it went from weird to good to awesome way quicker than it should have done, unless Sam had previous experience or just some innate talent for gay sex. Dean was almost certain it wasn't the latter.

Sam took his time, progressing slowly from one finger, to two, to three, at which point he started sucking Dean's cock into his mouth in counterpoint to the steady rhythm of his fingers. It felt fucking amazing, if Dean was being honest, and in the end he couldn't stop his hips from lifting off the mattress, pushing himself further up into the wet heat of Sam's mouth. Sam didn't seem to care, just adjusted his position and carried on sucking, and that sight alone was enough to make Dean harder; enough, perhaps, to bring him off right now.

His hand clenched tight into Sam's hair, all the warning he was able to give, and immediately Sam pulled back, clamping his free hand around Dean's dick. "Not yet," he said, voice raw and fucked out, and Dean could only nod in acquiescence and will himself back into some semblance of control before Sam replaced his fingers with his cock.

The first push inside was slow and difficult, more than a little painful, and though Sam distracted him somewhat with kisses, Dean was left feeling raw and exposed and too open. When Sam got all the way in and stopped, panting against Dean's mouth, Dean considered his own wilting dick and wondered why anyone had ever thought this arrangement was a good one. Clearly the inventor of gay sex had been high or insane or both.

It got better, gradually, as he adjusted to the way it felt to have Sam inside of him, filling him up, and by the time Sam asked in a shaky, barely audible voice, if he could start moving, Dean was able to nod his assent without too much apprehension.

In the dark, tucked away and quiet, they moved together slowly; uncertain, both of them, until Dean realised suddenly that the sparks down his spine were of pleasure rather than pain. He was hard again, so close to coming he could taste it, but it wasn't enough, not nearly enough. He wrapped his legs around Sam's waist and pushed his tongue into Sam's mouth; didn't say anything, but hoped that Sam would get the message.

It was faster, then, and harder, the feeling of Sam rubbing up against Dean's insides in a way so wholly alien and intimate that Dean didn't know if he was more turned on or terrified. Anything beyond the edges of the bed seemed to lose its focus, until the only thing he was aware of was Sam; in him and on him and around him, so connected that Dean wondered, fuzzily, if when they were done they'd actually be able to separate again. Right now it didn't seem possible.

Dean came first, his own hand on his cock because Sam was too far gone to do it for him, and when he drifted back to himself, head clearing a little of the haze of orgasm, he noticed the way Sam's movements had become jerky and frantic, his face buried in Dean's neck, his breath coming out in desperate little whimpers that sounded more like sobs. Dean tightened the clench of his legs around Sam's waist, pushing his hips up into Sam's thrusts, wanting Sam to tip over the edge he was teetering on, wanting it to happen while Sam was still inside him.

"Sam, Sammy, _god_ , c'mon—" he breathed, hands clutching at whatever bit of Sam's body he could reach, his mouth against Sam's ear babbling mindlessly, no longer able to control or filter what was coming out of his mouth, "Yeah, Sam—come on, little brother—"

And if it was then—at that exact moment—that Sam gasped and shuddered and came, then Dean closed his eyes and didn't let himself think too hard about why.

++

Afterwards, cleaned up and back under the covers, Dean couldn't fall asleep like Sam did, even though lethargy pulled at him like a heavy weight around his neck. He extricated himself from the octopus tangle of Sam's limbs, putting a pillow in the space he'd left behind to avoid waking Sam up. He went outside for some air, walked around the parking lot a few times, ignoring the twinge in his thighs and ass, craving a cigarette more than he ever had even back when he actually used to smoke the damn things.

After forty-five minutes or so, he let himself back into the room as quietly as he could, but when he turned to shut the door again, the next thing he knew there was somebody on his back, pushing him to the ground. Dean endured several seconds of pure, unadulterated panic before he got his head together and realised that his assailant was Sam. He managed to flip them over so that Sam was on his back and Dean was straddling him (There was a lot of Sam, sure, but he was still pretty scrawny), and tried to get Sam to stop freaking out.

"Whoa, whoa, easy, tiger," he said, holding Sam's flailing arms down against the carpet.

Sam stopped squirming, and his eyes finally sparked with recognition. "Dean?" he squeaked, so un-manfully Dean wanted to laugh, "You scared the crap out of me."

Dean just stared at him. "I scared you?" he said, "Sam, I'm not the one who just went apeshit and tried to kill you in my sleep."

"I heard someone opening the door in the middle of the night, Dean, I freaked!"

"And you didn't think that maybe it was me?"

"I thought you were still in bed!"

Dean looked over at the pillow he'd shoved into the circle of Sam's arms earlier. "You can't tell the difference between me and a pillow? I think I'm offended."

Sam looked over to one side, sheepishly. "I was half-asleep, okay? I didn't realise that you weren't there anymore."

"Obviously," Dean said.

Sam frowned and looked up at Dean again. "What were you even doing?"

"Looking for a beer," Dean said, sarcastically. Sam scowled at him. "Christ, Sam, I couldn't sleep. I just went out for some air."

"Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know that, asshat?" Sam snapped back, but he sounded less angry now than he did embarrassed. "Anyway, after the other night, I thought it was something ... else, you know?"

Dean didn't say anything. He let go of Sam's arms and shifted to the side so that they were lying next to each other on the floor, one of his legs still slung over both of Sam's. The carpet was itchy and gross, but whatever. At least it wasn't haunted.

"Don't you wonder about the rest of it?" Sam said, suddenly.

Dean considered feigning ignorance so as not to have this conversation, but he figured Sam would only go ahead and have it anyway, so he just said, "How do you mean?"

"You know, the things Bill told us about. The vampires and the werewolves and the leprechauns."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "He so did not mention leprechauns."

Sam pouted a little. "Okay, fine, no leprechauns, but all the other stuff."

"Yeah," said Dean, "All the other stuff."

Sam shifted uncomfortably beneath him. "I just ... don't feel like this is over, you know?"

The real kick of it was, neither did Dean.

++

The next morning, Dean woke up earlier than he would have liked, the birds perched on the railings outside making too much noise for him to sleep through. The room was still mostly dark, only the slightest tinge of dawn filtering in through the curtains. Next to him, Sam still lay with his eyes closed, but the sound of his breathing suggested that he wasn't really asleep.

Dean rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom to shower, and while he waited for the water to heat up, he found himself staring at his own reflection in the mirror.

There was a bruise on his jaw from where he'd been flung out of bed the other night, another on his collarbone, which he felt pretty certain Sam was responsible for, and both would have to be explained to their parents when they got home. Dean didn't particularly relish the thought, especially as he wasn't sure he could count on Sam for any assistance. Coming up with a story was likely to be all on Dean. He tried out a couple now, mouthing the words to himself in the glass, but gave up when he realised he couldn't even meet his own eyes convincingly as he lied. Yeah, going home was going to be _awesome_.

When he'd finished showering, he brushed his teeth and then went back out into the room, where Sam was standing in his boxers over by the complementary coffee maker and looking confused.

"Having trouble there, genius?" Dean said.

Sam looked up at him, a flush of embarrassment across his cheek. "It's complicated," he said, defensively.

Dean shook his head and laughed. "Go take a shower, let someone with a college education figure this one out, why don't you."

Sam gave Dean a withering look, but padded into the bathroom anyway. By the time he came out again, Dean had mastered the complexities of the coffee machine and was drinking the results, which were bitter and a little gritty, but passable enough this early on in the day.

He offered some to Sam , who scrunched up his nose and said, "Your coffee sucks, dude," just like he always did, but he took a sip from the cup Dean had poured for him, anyway.

They sat in silence for a while; drinking their coffee and watching the parking lot outside lighten as the sun came up. When the sunlight had crept round the corner of the building and started beaming across the floor of the motel room, Sam shifted uncomfortably in his chair and cleared his throat. Dean looked over at him expectantly.

"We should get going, I guess," Sam said.

Dean nodded slowly. Even now, he still wasn't sure where Sam intended to take them, though he felt with growing certainty that he would follow, wherever it was. "Guess we should," he said, non-specifically.

Sam looked up and met Dean's eyes. "Think if we drive fast, we can get home in time for breakfast?"

If there was a note of unhappy defeat to Sam's voice, it was only the barest hint, and Dean didn’t know if he felt more surprise or relief at the suggestion, so casually made, after everything.

He held Sam's gaze and said, "I think we can try." He smiled. "At least then we'd get some decent coffee."

Sam gave him a smile back, slightly short of its usual brilliance but still, it was a start. They gathered together the few things they'd unpacked for the night and left their keys in the lobby, where the bleary-eyed clerk behind the desk was barely awake enough to acknowledge them.

"What are we going to tell Mom and Dad?" Sam asked as they walked towards the car, and Dean wasn't sure whether he was talking about the ghosts, or just them. But it didn't matter, he thought, not really. The answer was the same either way.

"Nothing," he said. "I think nothing would probably be best."

Sam nodded. "Yeah," he said, in a quiet voice. For a fraction of a second, his expression darkened, but then it brightened again just as quickly, and he said, "Hey, you think maybe when we get back we can convince Mom to make pancakes?"

Dean considered this. "They'll probably come with a side-order of guilt, at this point, but yeah, maybe."

Sam smiled, and this time it was brighter than it had been for days. "I can live with that," he said, and turned the key in the ignition. He turned to Dean, squinting against the morning sun in his eyes, and said, "Guess we'll figure the rest out later, huh?"

And that sounded good, that sounded perfect, because the sun was shining, and Sam was smiling, and everything else could wait.

The sky was clear, watery blue and washed clean, as they started for home.

 

 **end**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Man's Long Shadow Driving On [Vid]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/244506) by [paraka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraka/pseuds/paraka)




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